Wreckside
by dreaminghour
Summary: Old Town lies in ruins, the relations between justice and the people in tatters, while Dutch discovers that things won't pick up where they left off. She can't run anymore. She can't fight what was set in place all those years ago. Her past has come knocking and her friends are scattered, healing their own wounds, but they'll need each other to get through this. (COMPLETE)
1. Leaving Utopia

"Last night I realized I've been having the same dream about my parents over and over."

 _Dutch sits up in the darkness of her room, her vision foggy, a low blue hue emanating from the light strip at the ceiling and along the floor._

"I can't even remember my parents' faces. I want to just pull them out and study them, but there's nothing there. I know that it's been a long time. Maybe I've just suppressed everything from before… But did I forget them on purpose or did I just not practice recalling what they looked like enough? Maybe that's the same thing."

 _The room swims around her, and she gets out of bed in her bare feet, and she is dizzy, almost falling to the ground. Everything is blurry, out of focus._

"I think I was once so sure that my father would come back to get me, that I'd see my mother again, that all I needed was to be patient. I had faith in something then. Khlyen or my father. Maybe I just believed in myself differently. _I trusted in things._ "

 _She stands upright again and bangs on the sensor to open her door, and it opens without a sound. There is no sound at all. The ship is silent, no electricity humming, no engines running, no noise from life or machine. All she can hear is the loud scuff of her dry feet on the cold floor, and it rasps loudly in her ears._

After a moment she spoke again. "I've been having the same dream about my mother for a while now, but I only realized last night that I'd had it before. Do you ever get that feeling? Is it that you've actually had the dream before, or are you just dreaming that part, too?"

 _She makes it to the cargo hold, the screens are all dark, only the emergency lights guide her to the open bay door, where the lights disintegrate. She heads out into the rubble of Old Town, without being able to see anything._

"In my dreams I feel like I'm back home, but I couldn't tell you where that it is. All I know is that I'm following my mother, she's holding my hand, leading me, and at first it's all dark… I can see she has long, curly hair, loose down her back, so dark on the dress she's wearing looks like bright quartz dust, reflecting blue starlight against her taupe skin. She's running ahead of me and my hand starts to slip out of hers, I want to hold her again but as soon as I begin to reach for her, she stops and is swallowed by dusk. Just before it all goes black again, she turns to look at me, but her face is completely unfamiliar to me— it's blank!"

 _Dutch sits bolt upright in her bed, panting, her skin slick with sweat. The air is thick and she has the urge to tear her chest open to breathe better._

"And then she's gone."

 _The door beeps and whizzes and John rushes to her side, half sitting on the bed, half kneeling on the floor. He's asking her something, but she can't breathe and can't listen or talk. He pulls her close and she lets him hold her. He strokes her thick hair which feels itchy with moisture. Her skin is clammy, her clothes soaked. Slowly her pounding heart gives way to the normal sounds again, the vibrations of the ship, his breath beside her, and she realizes she's crying on his shoulder._

Dutch glanced beside her to Johnny, who lay completely still. In the dim light of the cargo bay, his skin was so bright, his stubble obscured half his face. They were lying heads together on the floor of the cargo; her wet hair a dark spill around her shoulders, his blue eyes distant. Dutch began to pick at one of her cuticles. "I can't remember anything more about her. And my father… he's more of a concept than a man. Honor and…" She drew a deep breath. "Punctuality." She smiled, more for herself, but when she looked John in the eye, he returned a somber look.

"What?"

He looked for something more in her eyes, something to tell him how to react, but she wasn't giving him a command just then.

"You've never brought up your parents voluntarily before," he said.

"Well, it's not like there's much you don't know now. I'm not sure what the purpose of secrets are now. You know my whole dirty story—"

He sat upright immediately to gape down at her. "You really think so?"

She sat up as well and her skin prickled with a chill. She pulled her robe closer around her. "I never wanted to keep secrets from you. But some things were too horrible. But it feels like it's all— " she made a gesture like the damn truths were spread in front of her. "It's out. Everything. The whole sordid thing."

"Everything?" He shook his head incredulously. "Dutch— you're answers, or Khleyn, rather, have only created more mysteries and questions. The only things I know these days is that I know even less about you than I thought." He'd raised his voice and it rang through the ship.

He was angry and he stared at her, clearly hoping to confront some answer she could give him, but she had nothing to say. The things he didn't know about her were better kept secret.

She shivered.

"Lucy, turn up the heat."

"Heat has been turned down to conserve fuel," Lucy said. "On your orders, Dutch."

"Ugh." She balled her hands against her eyes and pulled her knees closer. She felt sick and small. She felt as though she had nothing to offer. "How much time has passed, Lucy? How much time do we need to sit here waiting?" She felt useless.

"Twenty-three minutes since you last asked, Dutch. Time left is approximately 359 minutes."

"Lucy, turn up the heat." John got on his knees and held out his hands, so much warmer than hers, and held her hands in his. "What do you want to do Dutch?"

"I don't know, but I don't want to stay here any longer." Her voice was small. "I have to do something. Whether it's deciphering Carlene's files or—" she shook her head— "beating the shit out of someone, I want to move. I'll forget how to." It had only been a couple of days, but that was all it took for Dutch to become sick of keeping herself company.

John looked for something in Dutch's face, and she let him look. But she had no idea what he saw, or if he found anything worthwhile.

"Why don't we see some friendly faces. Pree said it's messed up down there. I'm sure they could use a pick me up."

"Oh, Mother." Dutch covered her eyes again. "I've been so focused on running after Khlyen, I'd almost forgotten..."

"It's okay. You just wanted to help me find D'avin."

She nodded mutely.

"Let's refuel on Westerly, regroup with who's left, see if they need anything. Hop back to the Bazaar and see if Bellus has any warrants we can make some joy on."

"All right. Boss." She smiled at him, a shadow of her daylight self reappearing. "Is that what you want, John?"

He sniffed and shrugged a little. "I mean, yeah. We're going stir crazy here." In the space where he looked away, Dutch imagined she shared his thoughts. The destroyed city they'd be returning to, the empty bunk beyond the hold, the life she'd been creating for herself— all torn apart.

Friends dead, family gone, crew broken.

John stood and helped her up. She stood easier now, her composure falling back into place around her like armor; no storm could knock her down for long. Her smile was wane but her eyes bright.

"We'll find him, John," she said.

He nodded, turned away and dropped her hand, heading to the controls. She stood more slowly, tying her robe up again and idly picked up one of the things he'd been working on while she'd tried to sleep.

"Dutch, you coming?" John called.

She placed the blue glasses down carefully again, and walked softly to the front. He scratched at his short, sandy hair and yawned. He'd been sleeping less than her, if that was possible.

"Control, this is dock-45," he said.

" _Dock-45, this is Control, why are you hailing?_ "

"Requesting permission to undock from _Utopia_."

With a clunk and hiss, and no undue sentiment, they were released.

"Better, Loose?"

"Much, John. I think they mix something into the fuel there," Lucy said.

John laughed.

* * *

Boots on the ground, early morning was streaming in beams into dusty wreckage; the city was desolate. She'd never noticed there was a wind coming down from the mountains before, but without the town to deflect it, her hair was constantly getting in her face. She tied it back, and took the moment to watch John toe at the charred remains of some poor casualty.

He jumped when she put her hand on his arm.

"Let's get going."

His eyes were wide, seeming like a clear blue sea before a storm ripped through. But he swallowed whatever he was thinking and nodded.

John put on a pair of blue wrap-around glasses, flexing his entire face, nudging the way they sat on his nose back and forth. "They're a little small," he said, glancing at Dutch.

She shrugged. "Brawn before brains. You should have known I wouldn't wear them."

He readjusted the bridge on his nose again and flipped a panel open on the device he was holding. What Dutch couldn't see was what was laid out beneath the rubble. He pointed out ahead of them and swept a hand across to the prison facility where they'd wanted to land.

"It's fairly stable out here, but there are some weak spots we should do our best to avoid stressing anymore." He gestured out to the pylons west of their landing zone. "Amazing that Pree and the others got through."

"Any way down into the tunnels?"

John half frowned and shook his head. "The facility is our best bet. The service tunnels should still be accessible with our codes."

"Okay," she said. "Lead the way."

* * *

John led the way across the ruins at a steady pace. He swept his gaze across the whole area as they moved, keeping the device up, and the blue grid lines thrown across the city within his view. He'd designed the device for Dutch to wear, since she usually took fore on their more dangerous walks, but she'd refused point blank. With a gun in one hand and the device in the other, her options were more limited. He now wore the glasses shaped for her more narrow nose, and damn it, they were really uncomfortable. He stopped to rub the bridge of his nose.

"What is it?"

He turned back to look at her as she swept her hazel eyes along the horizon in a way he'd probably never learn to. She was so alert, always 'on' and aware of potential danger. She was a soldier like D'avin. The overcast day had washed the bronze undertones from her face, more the color of dusty quartz now, and she looked much as she had during her nightmare. She held his gaze for a second, then blinked at him.

"John?" It wasn't actually a request, much more forceful than a question.

He replaced the glasses and they continued on.

There were no dramatic near-misses, the ground didn't shift under their feet. The place they'd landed had a high probability of being stable, Lucy had said, but the device proved to them that they'd be safe— for now.

The blackened exterior of the ship bay seemed to trivialize the destruction around them, but there were cracks in the facade, windows had shattered and wide doors had been damaged. The lintel of the foot entrance had cracked as well, and the door was jammed; they got in through a window instead. The silence within was unsettling.

John took his glasses off, groaning as he rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Quit complaining, you can print another when we get back to the ship." She moved past him, sweeping the vast interior and advanced along the quay, eyes training on the end where the control desk sat, beyond which the holding cells lay.

John put the glasses back on and carefully assessed the damage the Company had done to their own building. Structurally it was okay, but barely. The foundation had been cracked, one section of the roof above the ships was actually going to come down sooner, rather than later, and the quay they stood on would no longer support the amount of people it was built for. He moved quickly, but with soft feet, to catch up with Dutch. He turned back and saw that the entry point was not going to stand another bomb blast, not even a small one.

"I'm not even sure this place would stand up to a black rainfall," John said when he'd caught up to Dutch. She stood with her gun raised, eyes fixed on the holding cells, completely still.

"I think the people who stayed here are still in here, and I just saw movement in there," she said in a low voice.

John pressed a button and turned a dial on the device he'd made and held it out in front of him. There were heat signatures beyond what they could see, several of them squatting out of visual sight in the holding cells.

"Are you sure those are Company soldiers?" John murmured. He didn't follow the thought that came unbidden after it, _who else would it be?_

Dutch took a slow breath. She then signaled with her free hand: _'move to booth, stay there.'_ He did. She took a careful stance just within their view, if they moved out from their position. She returned after only a few seconds.

She tapped her hand to signify the code she was using. _'Probably company. How many?'_

' _Five, at least,'_ he replied.

' _Sub-levels give access to the tunnels, hanger entrance damaged, hatch in control booth.'_ She paused. _'Getting inside is noisy.'_

They sat staring at each other for a moment, thinking, though it was only a couple seconds. Noise would get the attention of the agents, they would know they were on Westerly, in the sub-levels. Whether they could find the entrance to the tunnels, they might search the sub-levels to find them.

' _Risk it?'_ he asked.

Another couple seconds passed; he was not making this call. Whether or not the RAC still existed, whatever the status of their existence, she was still the one in charge. She might have deferred to him in their search for D'avin, but she was ultimately the one he trusted to make the right choice. It was automatic.

But then, he remembered their talk on the ship, her relationship to Khlyen. The history he'd never before questioned.

He could not doubt her and follow her.

When the signal came, he was ready.

She covered him while he shot the door. Strategic energy blasts to the door would overpower it's circuits, allowing the door to unlock and swing open. With the first shot, they were exposed. The second shot was precise, and the soldiers were at the holding cell doors, shouting. "No! Stop! Don't do it!"

Dutch trained her gun on them, but she didn't shoot. Out of the corner of his eye, John saw they were shaking the gate, violent desperation rocking the fence only slightly, shouting echoing the hanger. In the space before the third and final shot, exactly two degrees north by north-east of the lock, nothing could move him, and the door was nudged open, comically small in its movement, and John pried it open the rest of the way. Without the electrical component, the door was unlocked but heavy, no longer being helped on it's hinges. John raced across the room and pushed aside the space charts on the center island, ship paths, airspace shockingly empty. Beneath the island was the hatch, but when he looked, Dutch was still standing at the door.

"Dutch!"

She'd recognized one of them and moved to the gate where Cowan was speaking to her, his brown skin pale and clammy.

"Dutch," he said again, but moved close enough to listen, hand on his empty holster.

"You locked us in," Alvar said, and she looked like shit, too. Her blond hair was stringy, her eyes bloodshot.

John looked the door over. When he'd shot the control door open, he'd tripped the emergency protocols, they were locked in a fortress. Only a master key could unlock them now.

"But what do you mean? Where's Hills?" Dutch asked.

"He walked out just before the attack, something about getting a drink. He's probably as dead as anybody." Cowan licked his chapped lips. "Please, you can get us out."

"Wait." Dutch took a step back. Anyone else would have missed it, but John saw the hesitation. "We'll come back for you."

"What? Dutch!" Cowan began shouting again, the others just watched in silence. "You can't just leave us! Dutch!"

But she did. John felt a faint pang of worry, but followed her to the hatch and waited while she went down first.

"We're coming back, right?" He asked, his sympathy getting the better of him.

She looked up then, and it was the same old look of reassurance, surprising him. "Of course," she said.

He believed her, and followed her down.


	2. Welcome to Wreckside

AN: I've updated Chapter 1 at this time as well. Go check it out, if you've subscribed. Thanks for reading!

* * *

Jakk is slippery.

A good dose can lube up your insides, making everything run smooth. It felt like a taut wire strung across the chasm of emptiness had been lit. It boosted you, made everything velvety and warm all at the same time.

A bad dose is like the fire was dripping off the wire, burning into you instead of lighting you up the right way. It makes everything jump. It keeps you awake, but you might stumble and kill yourself.

The sea of the sick and the beds laid out before Pawter sent mixed signals; death and sleep were the same thing here, so she stayed on her feet. Pawter hadn't closed her eyes since before she knew the blanket bombs would obliterate her meager life.

So she took another hit and headed out again.

* * *

The tunnels were strangely empty. The sound of water running from broken lines in the upper levels, the funk of rot and mine dust was everywhere. Structurally they were secure, but the lights didn't work well, flickering and hastening Dutch and John on. They ran from light to light, often stumbling over rubble and discarded belongings.

Far outside the confines of the hospital structure they saw where the injured and dead lay. The living were being tended to by loved ones. Monks roamed among the beds like sentinels, reaching out to pray with a family or to unsteadily fix a bandage. One robed woman with small knots in her hair was crying beside a child like form laid beneath a sheet. No one else was around. After a moment, another monk ushered her on to the next.

They found Pawter Simms, hands on her hips under a small tent, the light from the display of a med screen flickering on the torn walls. Her dirty red hair was knotted beneath a scarf and a crazed look was in her eye. She'd been awake too long and the Jakk was coursing through her like an extreme caffeine high.

"Oh, you're back." She said it like they'd gone around the corner for a few minutes, not as though the world had crumbled since she'd last seen them. She began to walk, wordlessly expecting them to follow to the nearest cot. She appraised the soaked bandages on the person with quick assurance. "The bandage needs changing."

Continuing along, she picked out a small bottle from her waist pack. "Time for meds." The child on the cot was sitting beside a frail man laid prone. The child wore a sling and opened her mouth for the drops, the man only gave a grunt of acknowledgment.

"Who were you talking to?" John still stood beside the last cot, the seeping wounds on the woman laying there were demanding him to take action. "Which bandage?"

Pawter only turned back to give him the intense stare of severe fatigue. "You. The stomach." She continued on with Dutch and John behind her, administering to some, dispensing the precious pain medication to some and the valuable antibiotics to others. Twice she paused and asked her patient. "How long has it been since your last dose of pain medication?" They'd said twelve or sixteen hours respectively and she asked them how they felt.

"Can't feel anything," the young man with a gangrenous foot said.

"Like I'm on a cloud," the old woman with an eye patch said.

The man lost his foot and the woman was left alone.

Dutch assisted where prompted, John worked with deft hands, and monks stepped in whenever they appeared. The rare volunteers with medical training tended to the critical while Pawter oversaw all.

When their round ended, Dutch looked back and saw little had changed. She felt as though they'd barely made a difference. _Useless._

"It's diluted," Pawter whispered, holding up the vial of pain medication she'd been dispensing. "We're running low on _everything_ , I need to you to go to Leith and use my name." Her panic came out fully now, she held Dutch's hands and Dutch could feel the woman's sinews vibrate, her muscles twitching beneath the skin. "I need materials, bandaging, drugs and _Jakk_." The last word was breathless. " _Good_ stuff."

Dutch glanced out to the mass of people, and she recognized pale Alvis beside the black monk with short knotted hair who'd cried over the lonely child. They were holding down a man who was having stitches removed.

"At the moment, we're no better than the outer rim. Without consistent power I can't rely on my tools, I have to do everything the old way. We can't move the people who need _more_ , so I need you to bring it to me." Her grip on Dutch was tight, and she felt the tightness of being underground.

"Ok!" Dutch said. "We'll do it. And we have some joy, just in case your name doesn't get us far. I haven't been back to Leith anyway." She didn't say, _since the attack_

Dutch turned to go back the way she'd came and caught a chin jerk from across the room that had been meant for John. Alvis was hard to read even after all the years she'd known him, but with what little she did know, she couldn't begin to fathom what John saw in him.

"What's it like up there?" Pawter asked, pulling Dutch back even as John walked away. "We were going to go up to look for supplies, but haven't found a way up yet."

Dutch was trying to figure out the lay of the land down here, the interconnected secrets of these civilians and monks, but was distracted by John's posture as he strode alongside Alvis across the room. She only caught a glimpse of John's gaze, which he quickly averted. The two of them were headed to a group of rough and ready monks. His look had been a little cool, reluctant but compliant. His posture was deferential. It unsettled her.

"A mess, worse than the last time, I doubt you'd find anything...What's Alvis doing?" She asked.

Pawter twitched a shrug. "Revolution."

* * *

"What's with the Killjoy?" Juno spat off to one side and Alvis held up the hands of peace as he and John approached.

"He's a brother to me, friend."

John doubted that Juno liked being Alvis's friend.

Alvis followed Juno and the others, some of whom John knew by sight, and John fell into a rhythm beside them. He'd not told Dutch he was going and he was now feeling badly about that. It struck him, as he forced himself to watch the group of these monks, that Alvis was still leading them, even though he was not positioned in the front, ostensibly the same as any other monk. Strange, these people.

A couple other monks joined them as they crossed back out of the large domed room and returned to the tunnels. The group took up the entire width of the passage, Alvis closer to the front, eyes ahead, the rest watching the shadows and the deceased. Alvis glanced back at him and John quickened his step to answer the silent summons. It was like being with Dutch in a way.

"We're not able to care for their remains down here, normally it's not us, but..."

"There's no one else," John said.

"You know what it's like above ground," Alvis nodded. "We went up once the last raid had come through, just to get a sense." He voice dropped audibly. "I remember the last time, and— " His voice hitched. " _This_ was worse."

"Wait, you've been up? Only, I overheard Pawter..."

"There's nothing left, John."

"I know, I saw."

With a sharp turn, they entered the darkness of a sideway. John stumbled and Alvis caught his elbow naturally, like this wasn't the first time he'd guided a newcomer. He'd grown up here, John reminded himself, and it felt a little sad.

A little monk, probably only a couple years beyond puberty, sat with a holy book in his hands, and a candle on the ground beside him. He looked in awe as the group swept past. He pursed his lips at John in his clean black uniform. To be honest, it was a little distasteful to himself just then, it reminded him too much of The Company.

They pushed aside plastic curtains and the flickering light of hundreds of candles greeted them. There were a few more monks here, but also civilians. Nonetheless, he was certainly the cleanest among them.

"Who's the gun?" A woman held a glowing tablet, old model, dark hair in a messy braid, and stared intently between Alvis and his unfamiliar companion.

"A friend, Ashtur."

She seemed unconvinced, but was unable to do anything about it. So she lifted her info back in front of her face, blue light casting an eerie glow on her tan complexion, and walked off. "Message for you, Alvis." She pointed to a little girl who waited expectantly near the center of the room.

The little girl was also dark skinned and haired, and so _young,_ but not distracted from her mission.

"Message, sir!" She said.

"From?"

"Above ground. Reporting odd behavior in the western warehouses. Disease maybe?"

"Who saw it?"

"I did." She looked sheepish about it.

He frowned. "Did you go alone?" His tone was almost parental.

"Sorry, Uncle. They looked a bit like they'd been— " she simulated drug use.

"Odd," he said. "Thank you, Fi." He patted her head and she scurried off. Alvis continued on, trusting John to pointed to the table. "Observations. We're monitoring airspace as well as ground movement, but it's been silent. Old tech is faulty, so it's paper or in our heads. It's always been."

Alvis looked up, _was he searching for a reaction?_ John just nodded.

Juno was at the table tracing the trajectory of a ship that John belatedly realized had been Lucy. Juno felt John's eyes on him and glowered at John.

"The Company has been silent in this region since the bombing. No propaganda, no follow up. But they didn't use any chemical weapons..." Alvis was thinking out loud, saying this as much for his own benefit as John's. "Not many people were up there when the bombs hit, they either ran to the badlands, or out to the mountains beyond. We've been keeping track of those who were up there that we know of, taking care of the sick, but keeping them separate."

John felt a chill. "Why?"

"The bombing was bad, but it wasn't complete. They could have wiped out _all_ of Old Town, but they didn't. Most of us went underground. Except for some miners, and those RAC agents that little Fi saw."

"You think the contaminant was slow release."

Alvis shifted his weight. "That's what we were looking to see." He spoke up now, and John realized he'd been quiet up until then. "Now that you're here, can you tell us what you saw?"

He looked to Juno and the two others at the chart table.

"Only some Company soldiers. I wouldn't call the destruction as incomplete though." It was a grim thought. He quirked his mouth to one side and furrowed his brow. "I built these glasses to detect structural damage, and..." He recalled the paths through the damage, most incomplete, but for the one from landing zone to the prison facility. The mines had been ruined. "I think they may have left a back door."

"But why? For whom?"

John frowned while the monks continued their speculation, he recalled the crazed look in the eyes of Cowan and Alvar. The Company soldiers, and some RAC agents had survived above ground. Had that been done on purpose?

"We saw some Company men on our way down." John interrupted whatever they'd been saying about power lines to say this. "Hungry, tired, in shock, but not high, not... sick." Or whatever else they thought they were looking to hear. "They'd been locked up though."

Juno shrugged but Alvis traced an old map with his finger, the trajectory of a bomber, and didn't say anything.

"John, will you keep an eye on them for us? Memorize the RAC agents that were topside and keep track of them. If anything happens to _them_..."

Alvis lifted his gaze to John, unblinking in its intensity, and John nodded once, decisively.

"I can do that."

* * *

Alvis led John back to the makeshift hospital alone. Leaving the flicker of candlelight for the flicker of interrupted power lights was a stark reminder of a sour life. Down here, things were unchanged. Except for all the dead lying untended.

"Mother, I wish there was something we could do," John said as he stared at an elderly woman whose hands covered her dead face.

"We're doing it," Alvis said, and John believed him. The scarback would rather be silent than issue false assurances.

"Have you read any of that book I gave you?"

John winced, remembering where it lay on his bedside table where he'd put it, before his brother had left. "No," was all he said.

"It would be good to grieve with the words— "

"He's not dead, damn it!" John's anger felt like the only justifiable thing that day. His voice reverberated and came back to him, and the clenching of his fists was _real_ , he knew that he'd been avoiding the gnawing feelings since he yelled at Dutch that morning. It had been so easy for her to switch targets. Alvis was merely the unsuspecting victim of feelings left unchecked.

"Sorry," John whispered.

Alvis put his hand on John's shoulder, strong, simple and comforting. "It's gonna be all right, brother."

John closed his eyes and went through the brief cycle of wild emotions as quickly as he could, reassuring himself that what Alvis said wasn't empty. They were real and alive, and Alvis was here beside him.

"I know. D'avin is..."

Alvis twitched a smile and his eyes went distant. John had never asked Alvis about his own family, though he knew Alvis had grown up on Westerly.

"I'll do what I can, but… with everything that's come out, I don't know..." He wanted to say that the woman he'd once thought of as his only home had been replaced with a completely different person. "He's all I have left."

John wondered if Alvis had anyone who wasn't just resistance or religion to him. But the monk didn't speak. It felt nice to just stand in sympathetic silence with someone.

After another moment, they picked up their feet and found Dutch shadowing Pawter. John recognized her stance as 'bodyguard', but couldn't tell whom she was guarding: Pawter or the patients.

"Johnny's back." She said it mildly, but he liked to pretend he could find the fondness in her voice every time. She came over to them.

"Pawter might be in the unique position to help," Alvis said, casually picking up their previous conversation. He might have stuck his hands in his pockets to complete the illusion of a careless suggestion. But as always, his hands were folded meditatively at his abdomen. "After all, the Rack are here with the Nine's blessing. If you're looking for Khlyen—"

"Pawter's in a _shit_ condition," Dutch hissed. "The sooner we get to Leith the better."

"Joy for Jakk." John felt oddly uncomfortable about this.

"Though that may be the case, she still has friends in high places."

"I doubt anyone wants to see her like this," Dutch said.

They all watched Pawter for a moment.

"The mind is the origin of all weaknesses, and we all have them," Alvis said by way of farewell. Turning and walking away, he entered the the shroud of sickness once again.

"What a weirdo," John said to Dutch, but when he looked at her she was trying to puzzle him out.

"What did he ask of you?" she asked. Her voice held a tinge of something new, it might have been insecurity… It was so unlike Dutch, he dismissed it immediately.

"How did you know?" Dutch always knew, but John asked anyway. This was all new for some reason. Or at least it was tinged with an 'otherness'. Before everything had happened, before _this_ , he'd known where he stood. But she didn't know where she stood with him, and he didn't know her at all, apparently. That made everything between them a coin toss. _So_ , he wondered, _was she insecure?_

"Alvis always has a use for people who offer their hands. You're usually too busy. But you're— " she bit her lip, a tiny gesture he'd only recognized two years ago, confirming his suspicions. "You're always too nice," she finished lamely.

She led the way out. "Come on, let's see if there's anything to eat in this rat hole. I'm starving," she called back over her shoulder, replacing her veneer of assurance.

John tamed the nervous jitters in his stomach. Of all the things he'd seen that day, Dutch still unsettled him the most.

* * *

 _While the ground was still shaking, Pree had begun to clear the stairs to the Royale. He'd covered himself in dust long before the monks had swirled the clouds of dust with their robes and walked tracks in the dirty streets._

Dutch pulled herself up the rungs faster than John did, ascending the ladder like a lemur. She hopped off at the platform and waited for him to catch swayed a little, his hands on his hips while she bent over to close the hatch and lock it up again. But he said nothing, glancing away when she stood up and brushed fly-aways out of her face. He nodded once he'd caught his breath and they moved on.

 _Pree moved rocks until his body ached, pulled at iron until his fingers bled and dislocated his shoulder finally pushing up into the wreckage of his bar. He laughed as he sat against the remaining wall, an empty glass in his hand and then fainted._

The ten feet up the ladder into the control booth were the hardest. Emerging into the quiet of the hanger reminded Dutch of a graveyard, but the chill that ran along her spine was from the cold of broken buildings, she told herself. John shivered.

 _When Pree awoke, the dust had settled a bit, covering him in grey and the sun was streaming through beams that would rust before they were knocked down. His shoulder didn't hurt much, only a dull throbbing remained and the unbroken glass was still hilarious. So he laughed._

She pried open the panel beneath the control desk and John slid in with wire strippers and a small battery. It only took a minute for him to say 'done', but when she looked out to the holding cells, nothing had changed. Alvar stood staring at her, the expected primitive contempt a comforting sight.

 _A woman he hadn't seen moved at the sound he made, shifting from her slow progression through the rubble to turn toward him and cock her head. She clearly expected him to be alive as much as he'd expected to find anyone alive above ground. He quieted and she moved carefully toward him, saying in a breathless whisper, "Hello..."_

"Stand back," Dutch told them, even as more people came from around the corner and some pulled on coats and tied their laces.

"Stand back!" John repeated and squinted through the blue tinted glasses as he lifted his gun to shoot the lock.

 _Pree wanted to reply but his mouth was caked in dust and a tiny movement he'd made suddenly brought the pain to the front of his mind. He bit down and growled the scream, suddenly wide awake. The woman still moved in her careful way toward him, unconcerned. And her movements seemed unhuman._

John let off three rounds again on the large panel, and nothing happened right away, leading Alvar to sneer knowingly at Dutch and Cowan to yell out, "You see!"

But then the lock disengaged and the door opened.

John winked at everyone, and was almost as bright as his old self again. "You see, you just gotta know how to treat a lady." Turning to Dutch, however, his smile fell. He turned to look out to the empty structure as the others came out from the enclosure.

He began directing them toward the safe way out while Dutch watched him. She had no idea what she was supposed to do.

 _Her eyes were black, completely black and she sniffed the air as she came closer. She moved carefully through the room without looking at the rocks and the cracks beneath her. Pree's breath was sucked away by pain and fear. "What are you?" He asked. She smiled wickedly._

Unlike before, Dutch now followed John, watching his back as he went into storerooms after the others. They took clean clothes, water, ate food and changed where they stood. They seemed fine, weak and tired and angry, but rightly so. Dutch wasn't worried about them. She offered a seat on Lucy to Cowan in remembrance of all the drinks and nights they'd shared, but he turned her down for the first time. It seemed they'd made a plan while Dutch and John had been gone. None of them wanted passage on her ship.

She didn't blame them, look what had happened to D'avin.

 _Pinned down, Pree could not avoid the woman reaching out to him, and he twitched, his eyes jumping from unrecognizable fragment to cracked remnant for an escape. She whispered in that same, slow and foreign way, "I'm doing this for your own good..." She gripped his neck in one clawlike hand, she smelled of unwashed flesh, and the pain blinded him. She grabbed his dislocated shoulder and he fainted again from the excruciating agony._

Cowan was the first to follow them out, and as he gaped at the wreckage, John felt the ire inside him bubble to the surface. _This_ is what his life had become. _This_ , all _this_ is what he swept his arm out before them and savagely said, "Welcome to Wreckside."

11


	3. Knock Down and Drag Out

AN: Huge thanks are owed to my betas: HelenJoy, Doogers, Kateera and Grant.

* * *

They landed on Leith as the sun set, and in the lilac twilight it seemed as though nothing had changed. As John walked from the hidden field with Dutch he only saw the beauty and the peace that people would do anything for. Then the doleful horn of a funeral procession sounded in the forest. The dead were gone, but not forgotten.

In the bazaar, it was business as usual. The bars were back to selling drinks to those with joy to burn as well as those in mourning. Here the last thing anyone wanted to talk about was the attack.

A block away from Bellus' brokerage, they heard a familiar voice call them into a cheap joint. It was a place frequented by victorious killjoys fresh off a shopping spree. It had also hosted the memorial service for Dutch's mentor, Big Joe, and with all that had happened recently, they hadn't been back since. John followed Dutch through it's wide open doors into the dim and dirty interior.

"Hey, pretty birds, where's D'av?" Fancy Lee's cocksure smile split his serious, ashen face when he saw them. A blush in his cheeks told them he was already half way drunk. "Hunk couldn't make it out of your bed this morning, Dutch?" The easy arm he threw around Dutch's shoulders rubbed John the wrong way. It was too familiar, it wasn't appropriate now. Or ever. He felt ill and was reminded of the instant mix he'd eaten in the tunnels.

"Whoa, looks like you already partied!" Fancy Lee patted John's back as he threw up into the gutter out front.

Fancy escorted John back into the bar like they were old friends. "Cynthia! A round for my friends!" His celebratory mood was so _wrong_ and no one else shared in it. Cynthia, the dull looking, monochromatic beige woman behind the bar poured drinks without a word.

"We're not friends, Fancy," John said and ignored his drink. Fancy laughed and walked off.

Dutch slung her hokk back easily enough and sat down beside the only other killjoy at the bar, Dakoda, the older Rygar brother. He was a short, broad guy who could take hits as quick as he got 'em. His blond hair was mostly gray, but soft, wrinkles seemed to be the result of too many jokes rather than age. He was drunk.

John surveyed the place in the casual way Dutch had taught him, checking the civilians, seeing the brown shaved head of another killjoy he knew, sitting with her arms around a pretty-boy. John's eyes glanced off the two Company suits drinking coffee in the corner, memorizing them as quickly as possible. Old habits.

Facing him was a woman with a smooth face of clay, dark eyes lidded and black hair in a tight up-twist. A brown-haired man sat across from her, his tawny hands darker than Fancy Lee's, but having the same yellow undertone. Their suits were well made, fitting them comfortably.

"Fucking upstart. Been like this since he got here," Dakoda muttered, his wet, angry eyes on Fancy.

Fancy had gone back to a drunken game of darts with a well dressed tradesman. Fancy laughed, stroking his beard, humoring his opponent. He was about to take a lot of money off the poor guy.

John sat on the other side of Dakoda with his back to the wall, while Dutch sat with her back to the establishment. He knew she did this to pretend she wasn't as aware of the entire bar, to tempt enemies into being sloppy. Old habits.

"When did he get here?" she asked.

"Last night. Been drinking since. I don't think he left at all. Slept in a ditch, probably." He grunted and appraised the only smudge of dark brown on one of Fancy's pants leg. They were all looking at it.

"What, really? I'm amazed he didn't go back to this ship to change his clothes. He's so vain."

Dakoda lifted an eyebrow and guzzled his drink. "Maybe he's drinking his pain away. Though I'd be surprised to be told Fancy had anyone to lose. He's always been unattached, makes the best killjoy."

John snuck a look at Dutch, hoping to see what she was thinking, but she was a one-woman team until she needed him. She teased, humored, played along until she gave the signal. That was their game, he reminded himself. Old habits.

He felt sick again. When her old life was done breaking her down into anger and violence, he wasn't sure there'd be a place for him in it.

Hell, the team was divorced anyway. That part of their asinine plan was easier to forget.

 _D'avin..._

"We were just on our way to Bellus', Dakoda." Dutch toyed with John's still full glass of hokk.

"Good luck. Been a slow couple days around here."

"Oh?" Dutch gave John a significant look. "Jobs not coming in?"

Dakoda made a face. "No, just slow. Was like this after the last blanket bombing of, you know..." He finished his drink with a happy sigh and stood. "We'll pull through. Always do."

Dutch caught his arm, saying, "Johnny isn't gonna drink this, and Fancy's paying. Perhaps you'd like to?" She let the sentence dangle.

He hemmed and hawed for a second, for show, but then fell back into his chair and accepted the drink she pushed toward him as he always did.

"I'll tell you one thing, though." Dakoda resumed his thoughts easily.

"What's that?" Johnny asked, watching his drink disappear.

"Turin," he said, and Johnny could have sworn he saw one of those twitches Dutch did when she didn't like where her thoughts went.

"The whole thing just stinks of— I mean, I'm not superstitious like some, but you see enough, and you can't help but think..."

"What?" Dutch asked, eyes on Johnny.

"Level six." Dakoda had lowered his voice dramatically, so they both had to lean in toward him. "What happened to Turin— he's probably been taken for _level six_."

No one spoke. Dutch had lowered her gaze and was rotating the tumbler's bottom edge in a circle on the bar, making a hollow dragging sound. John saw that Fancy's opponent had left with his pockets much lighter. Fancy was carefully counting some paper notes with a smile. Dakoda took the silence to mean he'd said something amiss, so he drank again and smacked his lips loudly.

"Well. Where's your third? Johnny's brother wasn't he?" Dakoda jerked his chin, and then he actually looked concerned. "Nothing happened to him, did it?"

"We split up," Dutch said.

"We haven't heard from him since the bombing," Johnny said at the same time.

He felt the anger from that morning return, even as Dutch's eyes flashed a warning. Dakoda was too drunk to see any of this.

"Things not work out between you two?" Dakoda grumbled into his almost empty drink. "I may owe Fancy some money." He made a gesture of thanks to Cynthia and nodded to Dutch. He stood before swallowing the rest of his drink and stumbling off toward Fancy.

"We should go see Bellus," Dutch said softly, already getting up.

He scraped his stool back loudly, drawing attention in the murmuring bar. The Company officer with dark eyes looked at him for the first time. The man across from her was holding her hand, so John dismissed the pair of them, they weren't a threat. He had other problems.

Dutch wasn't fooling him. Her hard exterior didn't hide the turmoil beneath, and he wasn't going to just pretend she hadn't changed since Khlyen taken his brother. Now he wasn't sure he'd trust her to actually help him grab D'avin before losing herself in the hunt for answers. For a split second he wondered if he might have better luck without her.

"Yeah, let's," he said and led the way out.

* * *

It took D'avin a moment to acknowledge that he was awake and he was in a very cold place. It was deathly quiet. He chewed on stale saliva and felt the final dregs of some drug cocktail fade from his system. When he opened his eyes, they were cloudy for a moment.

D'avin sat up slowly in the bed, and felt each atom of the sterile sheet he'd been under disconnect from his body. _By the Gods, why was he naked?_ A doctor came in, her long dark-brown hair spun up into an efficient clip, and ignored him.

In a second he went through his options; knock her out, sneak out behind her back, or confront her. She turned to face him with perfunctory ease, her gray eyes tamed of emotion. She'd done this many times before.

"I'm just here for your final injection." She smiled and transformed an otherwise unremarkable brown face into something passably friendly. Her whole posture was so firm on being comforting, and putting him at ease, that every molecule in him rebelled. When she slowly brought the syringe to his bare thigh, his hand snapped up to her throat, but she was quicker. She blocked the hit and ducked under the bed he'd been lying on as he rolled off. She came up the other side with a firearm pointed at him.

He paused.

"Will that kill me?"

Her smile was more sincere now, revealing a golden glow in her cheeks. "It'll slow you down."

He backed off, loosening his stance, and she lowered the barrel.

"Come on, let's get you ready." Her mouth twitched. "And get you some clothes."

* * *

"You two crybabies. You've got all the answers right in front of you." Bellus crossed her arms. "I must admit, I've been enjoying the quiet." She grimaced and corrected herself. "I mean, without you two. Not the massacre."

"People are just scared, that's all. Careful. Figuring out who makes the next move in the Quad," Dutch said and thought she saw Johnny react. When she looked at him, however, he was standing absently with his hands in his pockets.

"The Quad needs the Rack more than ever." Bellus looked at them like she was appraising children she was about to share an important secret with. "You two ready to do some good?"

John began fiddling with a dented teapot on the shelf. The lid didn't fit anymore, yet he didn't stop trying to put it back on. It made a dull metal clinking sound each time he reset it, occasionally alternating with a wispy scrape as he turned it in its place.

Bellus looked at him but ignored the noise, saying, "None of the Nine haven't released a statement. They're the ones who gave Scarbacks special exemption all those years ago, and some're sayin' the Nine should be held responsible as well. Officially the Company stands behind their decision, and at least, everyone whose spoken on the Comapny's behalf pretends to understand the justification of the attack on Old Town."

"Over reaction," John said under his breath, still tapping the lid on the pot.

"Pah!" Bellus didn't shy away from meeting Dutch's eye. They stared at each a moment while Dutch tried to understand something beneath what Bellus' said.

John's fiddling with the teapot had quickly annoyed Dutch. "John, stop," she finally said. And he did. Only to sit on the only chair in that office that squeaked.

"Got any low-level warrants for us to work for some extra joy? I've been sent for supplies by Pawter, for her underground hospital."

"Not much work, even for the pair of ya." Bellus consciously tried to relax. "There's a thing that demands a well oiled machine. Think you're up for it?"

Dutch wanted to say 'yes' but looked to Johnny for confirmation first.

"We'll think about it. Pawter's waiting for us," John said coolly.

Bellus' expression hardened and she leaned forward, her eyes shaded from the light. She spoke softly, with an unmistakable warning in her voice. "Be careful what company you keep. Don't mistake being neutral for being spared from the cross-hairs."

"Bellus, do you know something?" Dutch's squinted and now, just when she needed to see everything, she could feel the effects of the alcohol in her blood. Even John went still as they waited for Bellus to answer.

The broker shrugged, disappointing them. "The Quad's fine, but don't count on that always bein' the case. Now if you'll excuse me—" Her chair creaked as she stood. "My wife's cooking smells _delicious_ all the way down here, and I'd hate to have cold squash-spice soup just because you two can't make up your minds."

Without much ado they were back on the street, Bellus Haardy's shop locked and shuttered behind them.

* * *

Starlight glinted through the glass ceiling, but this evening was not a time for loitering. Passerby didn't meet their eyes as they headed for the gate and a bell rang in the distance.

"Gods, do you think there's a curfew?" Dutch asked, but John didn't answer. He kept his head bowed and she kept going, only looking back to see he had stopped to stare slack-jawed at the mess of a stall, still decided to fall back on what was comfortable, her role as leader of their little duo. "Come on, Johnny, we need to get going."

"Why are we hurrying to do a drug run?" he asked.

She pretended she didn't catch the harsh edge under the face was just _dark_ like he knew his own thoughts were his enemies.

"Supplies, John." She shook out some debris from her hair and tightened the strap that held it up, and only the wind scraping leaves against the bazaar was heard. Then, a crash as someone dropped a dish or a glass a couple streets away.

"This is a drug run. And we're paying," he said.

On Lucy it had been all right. While still in the power-save-mode of reliable familiarity, everything had seemed removed: the bombing, D'avin's departure... Collapse didn't seem imminent. She felt a little bit of a stranger to this John, otherwise she might not have said:"It's the right thing to do."

There was no right or wrong.

"Enabling a—" He cast down his eyes, his mind's track a mystery to her. "And what about D'avin?"

"What about D'avin?" She asked this sharply, tucking away the tremor in her voice. She didn't know what he wanted her to do. He hadn't brought up D'avin yet that day. _We've been avoiding this._

 _She'd_ been avoiding sleep had been uneasy, her mind had become a wreck. She didn't know what to do.

"Why aren't we looking for him?"

She ignored the clench in his jaw, a clear sign of aggression. She also didn't _know_ who he was at the moment.

"What the hells are you on about?" Dutch looked at John, incredulous. "We _looked_ for him. We _are_ still _looking_ for him."

"You couldn't _wait_ to get off Utopia." He stepped closer. "When I gave you an out, you took it. You didn't _hesitate_." He switched gears. "We need to do something, get Pawter involved. Try finding him from another angle. Maybe she can help us find Khlyen, who'll lead us to D'avin— before it's too late." He said this in a decisive tone that he'd only ever used in relation to D'avin. Before she'd met his brother, she'd never heard John speak like this. Before he'd always deferred to her. It comforted her to know John was like this in family matters. It upset order in their little machine, and it was _right_.

But she could do without the anger.

Her reaction of disgust was automatic. "Pawter is a waste." She then spokein the way she always spoke to him on a job: clearly, and with command. "We need to get her some clean Jakk, get her patients stable. Once we're back to a baseline, we can get the doctor sober and back in the arms of her family or whatever you seem to think will help. Maybe then she can be a little more useful to us. Or anybody." She knew as soon as she finished she'd gone too far and did her best not to betray that feeling.

But John clearly thought so as well. His breath was heavy, and his anger was coming off him hot.

Behind her the chime in a shop rang and voices laughed. They weren't as real as this felt. A couple more seconds and their street was hollow silence again.

She was quite a bit younger than him, yet she'd never had a problem prodding him in the right direction. "You want to go back to Utopia? Fine. Just say so." She crossed her arms and pushed him further. "Why do you let Alvis get inside your head, like this?"

The punch had been so unexpected that Dutch didn't move to block _or_ to roll with it. She stumbled back a step, brushed a hand over her jaw and admitted to herself that he had a good swing.

"By the bloody trees, John!" But instead of communicating, she gripped him and threw a hook. _Oh, bad idea,_ she thought.

Neither of them _wanted_ to fight. But Dutch had never been good at talking, and John was done with words.

He grabbed her arm as it swept past him. He shoved her while her momentum had her off practiced grace, she jabbed her hand into the softness of his doubled slid in the grit, exhaling, hoping that would be enough for lunged at her. They toppled down, her head grazing the stone he pulled back to hit her again, she kneed him in the chest. She kicked again to knock the air out of him, and felt the tear of muscle as delicate flesh was stretched. Now when she stood up, he stayed down.

She scuffed the ground with her boots as she walked over to stare down at him. The fear and anger in his eyes was old and unfamiliar. She didn't know if she could fix this, and that hurt. She spit blood on the ground.

"What the fuck is Pawter going to do, John?" She asked. He didn't answer.

She held out her hand and he took it.


	4. Ruins

Six years ago...

" _Hello, Lucy. Are you awake yet? You have been laying there unconscious for 6 hours now._ " The disembodied voice seemed to be everywhere around her, and the woman lying on the floor groaned. " _I'm glad you're alive. I was afraid you had expired in my cargo hold._ "

"What? Who are you?"

" _I am called Dutch. A prototype AI system for the new Flying Ship. Have you recovered from your injuries, Lucy?_ "

"My name's not Lucy," she said. "Can you turn on some lights?"

The ship obliged. When she sat up the smell of blood was stronger. Looking down, she saw her gown was spattered in blood. She felt a dry heave threaten to break from her, but she took long slow breaths and the nausea passed.

"Dutch, where am I?"

" _In the Royal Syndicate, Lucy. We've docked on the fourth planet._ "

"My name is not Lucy." She ground her teeth. "My name is Yalena of the noble family Yardeen. I am—" Her voice cracked and she stopped.

" _On the run?_ "

"Yes," she whispered.

" _Then that is presumably why you gave me a alias. Would you like me to call you 'Yalena'?_ "

"No."

" _Then what should I call you?_ "

"Let's switch names."

The AI seemed to pause, considering this. It _was_ a remarkable ship. Looking around the spartan hold she saw that beside her on the floor lay an instrument, and she eagerly touched it, fearing it to be unreal. But it's smooth wood was familiar, it's strings ready for her hands.

" _If we switch names, you will be Dutch and I will be Lucy, is that your intention?_ "

"Exactly."

" _Understood, Dutch,_ "Lucy said. " _Now, I must alert you to a situation..."_

* * *

In the present...

Back on Lucy, John had fixed his old wound and wiped the blood from his nose. He left alone the bruise spreading across his cheek and swollen eye, intending it to be a sore spot for Dutch. She seemed to have remained untouched in the fight. They didn't talk about it. There was no reason to.

While Lucy flew the few hours back to Westerly they closed their eyes. John wasn't as much tired as he was hurt and empty, feeling the lack of both Dutch and D'avin acutely. Normally when sleepless, he'd have tinkered with Lucy or with their gear in the bay, but Dutch was in there that night and they needed distance between them. He could hear her clink a glass on a counter and he knew she was uselessly watching algorithms run. He knew the sound of the couch well enough to imagine hearing her sit on it despite the whirr of engines. All that was left for him was sleep.

He sat Lucy down in the same place as last time, a short walk from the intake facility. Opening the cargo bay, they found Alvis waiting with a thicker robe on top of his usual garb, his face hooded. He seemed more like the stone around him than a marigold-clothed monk, standing with his arms crossed in the pale predawn light. Everything was so fucking gray.

"Alvis. Pree with you?" John stomped off Lucy first, slinging his portion of the supplies over his shoulder. He glanced back to see where Dutch was. Old habit.

"No." Alvis' answer came out in a visible puff of hot air. He jerked his chin toward Lucy. "Need help carrying supplies?"

"No, we're fine." John stood side by side with the monk, both of them facing the open bay door. John glanced at Alvis and noticed his red nose. "You wait here all night, man?"

Alvis let out a cloud of breath, as close to a laugh as possible. "Only a couple hours."

Dutch hit the button to close on her way out, running down the rising ramp and jumping off it's end.

" _You can always just ask me to close the hatch, Dutch,"_ Lucy said, a hint of hurt in her machine-like tone.

"Nothing personal, Lucy," John said. "She's just picking a lot of fights these days."

Dutch smiled despite everything. "Who would have thought that John would one day be into Church."

No one said anything. Alvis let the moment between them inflate, only seeming to notice the bruise across John's face just then. He glanced at Dutch as though asking and answering something in the same mildly curious way that kept him out of trouble.

John was feeling a bit numb except for the heavy pack on his back.

"So," Dutch said. "You got something you want to share, or did you just happen to be enjoying the sights in this part of town when we touched down? Do you know if Pree got our message?"

"And how did you get through the bomb zone?" John asked.

At least Alvis had the decency to look the slightest bit embarrassed before he said, "I followed your tracks. Well, you and the company agents. Two of them came to this exact spot and were picked up just after dusk. No word from Pree."

So he had been here the whole night.

Alvis huffed. "Which is why I came here, to tell you this: the Company is coming back to Old Town."

* * *

Dutch got them to take a walkabout to the Royale with the supplies heavy on their backs in the hopes of finding Pree. It seemed that no one had seen him since he'd returned with the others they'd taken on Lucy a couple days ago.

It felt unfamiliar to follow John, but it was easier with him and his 'stability goggles' in front again, so he led, she came next and Alvis came behind her. They picked their way through holes the size of docking bays and burnt out husks of buildings that were darker than the stains black rain left. And everywhere they stepped they found blood and bones between the stones.

"How will we recognize it?" John asked softly, his voice carrying well along the street and into the space beneath and beyond.

"I know the way, Johnny," Dutch said.

Behind them, Alvis cleared his throat.

"They haven't reestablished communication with Old Town yet, but if they're coming back, they'll do that first. Then they'll begin clearing the damage."

"By 'they' you mean Westerlyns," Dutch noted. The wind began to pick up again and the slightest rasping of noise returned to town. She whipped her gun out and targeted it on a gently moving piece of fabric. She exhaled and lowered her piece, but a chill had taken hold of her. "Why though? They have mining operations all over this moon. They scrapped Sugar Point— they never cleaned it up."

"This is their biggest operation in the Quad. Losing it means taking a serious cut. They wouldn't be so stupid."

Looking back, she saw how malicious the line of Alvis' brows was.

"Wait." Ahead of them, John had stopped. "We need to space out as we cross here." He swore something that Dutch thought was badly pronounced Westerlyn slang. "Dutch, we can't even be sure we can get back down to the tunnels from Pree's."

 _Thank the Woods he didn't say 'if he's even there,'_ she thought.

"Come on, give me those." She snatched the specs off his face before he could protest. He still hadn't fixed the bridge, so they fit her perfectly. She swept her eyes across the scene, memorizing the grid marks and handed the pair back. "Got it."

Dutch stepped out lightly onto the tilted plane of road and navigated the blocks strewn about like they weren't obstacles, stepping right beside one, and balancing on another brick before slowly coming down again. The ground made grating noises beneath her, but she continued unhurried, finally coming to stand on a bit of black, turning and smiling at them.

"Come on, boys."

They glanced at each other and then followed. Alvis came first, and John, least sure of the path, stared down, matching Dutch's and Alvis' steps in the dirt exactly. When he neared the end however, he trusted his technology and stepped into the middle of a slab and it cracked. Dutch had known to step closer to the left, Dutch had followed. The grumble beneath the stone threw him off balance and Dutch and Alvis had to lunge to catch him and drag him across the final rock, onto safe ground. Looking back where they'd come, Dutch watched the ground slip away, silently, and it gripped with her terror. She couldn't protect John as she was.

They found the Royale in a similar state to all the other buildings. The survival of the Prisoner Intake Facility had clearly been a plan or a flaw, she couldn't decide.

Alvis and John stayed outside with her pack while Dutch ventured into the ruin, heading to the only wall still standing in the entire structure. It was there she found Pree lying unprotected, caked in gray dust. For one violent second, her body went into its reactionary mode, wanting immediate recourse, but her thoughts stopped when she knelt beside him. It was too big to stop now. She reached out to stroke his beige, shaved head, biting back a sob, trying to keep her hand steady, when she felt the pulse at his neck jump beneath her fingers. "Pree!" He laid still, _but he was alive!_ So she shouted, "Pree's here!"

She heard the men scrambling through the wreckage as she checked Pree for injuries. There was blood and his skin was feverish, but he seemed unbroken. Last she'd seen him, he'd been walking across unsure ground with the others she'd put on Lucy. He still looked like shit.

"Pree, please." She lifted his head in her hands, and felt the tears on her cheeks before she realized she was crying. "Pree, please, can you hear me? Please, wake up."

Alvis placed a hand on her shoulder as Johnny knelt on his other side, looking at her in a tender way that let her know he was there for her. It stung to realize he hadn't looked at her like that in a while.

"I'm gonna try the way down," John said and he left.

Vaguely, Dutch was aware that Alvis was holding her hand, touching Pree and praying. She wiped her tears, making a dusty mud on her face, and tried her best not to be sacrilegious.

"It's open!" John said. "We can take him down this way." He went back for their packs, handing one to Alvis and taking his back on before going to help Dutch get Pree up.

"No," Dutch said, and saw consternation in John's face, but before he could argue, she continued: "I'm fast, you're stronger. I'll take both packs, you two take Pree. Once we're down, I'll run ahead and bring back a stretcher, you can't carry him alone between you all the way under Old Town."

They got him down, and as promised, Dutch ran as fast as she could under the weight of supplies.

* * *

The stretcher sped everything up. Dutch brought a monk with her, and with four of them carrying the tall man, they'd made quick progress through the tunnels. She'd told them and it had been easy.

A lot had changed in the bunker overnight. Half the beds had been emptied, and the smell of blood was older now, like it was drying out. Meanwhile the musty moisture smell had become more pronounced.

"Put him here." Pawter quickly took command of them, bringing Pree under a light and cutting away his ripped clothes and applying a stuttering x-ray scanner to him. She quietly and efficiently searched him, gloved fingers probing for softness, swollen areas and broken skin. She paused at his right upper arm. "He's fine. He's probably just passed out from the pain. He dislocated his shoulder." She prodded a little harder at the affected area.

"Hey!" Dutch said as John winced. "Take it easy!"

A glance from Pawter with her disheveled hair, baggy eyes and smudged alabaster skin told them what she thought of them. "It'll be fine. Just needs rest. As for him—" She pulled a small bag out of a drawer and opened it in front of his face, immediately waking him. "He'll be on his feet back to work before the rest of you."

"What do you want to do to me, witch?" Pree grumbled. He was still groggy, but Pawter helped him sit up and he winced as she helped him into a sling. He lay down again as soon as it was on.

"You were lucky," Pawter said. "You dislocated your shoulder and put it back in again. Must have hurt like a bitch." She patted him on his good shoulder and went back to the tent where Dutch had dumped their packs.

"Damn lucky." Dutch smiled fondly at Pree as she knelt beside him, taking his hand.

John had to look away.

"What were you doing up there?" Dutch asked.

"I needed a drink," Pree said, the roguish look back on his face, wonderfully familiar. But then his expression changed darkly, and his smile slipped.

"What happened?" John asked. Alvis physically stopped him from moving closer, his hand warm on John's forearm.

"I must have been hallucinating," Pree said quietly. "The woman who put my shoulder back into it's socket— "

Alvis flinched, and if he hadn't still been touching him, John wouldn't have noticed.

"She had black eyes, and spoke in this weird voice." He hiccuped a laugh. "If I didn't know better, I'd have thought she was an alien. But I don't believe in aliens," he finished softly.

Dutch looked to John then and he knew exactly what she was thinking of. _D'avin_.

"So, she just helped you?" John asked.

"No, she was looking for something." Pree sat up carefully and coughed. "Then she heard me."

"Whoa, take it easy, brother." John reached out to help Pree, but he was ignored. He swung his legs over the edge of the cot.

"You have something to say, Scarback?" Pree asked.

Alvis made an odd expression as he lifted a finger to his ear and readjusted something behind it.

"Ashtur was worried about you."

Pree sighed, tried standing but had to sit down again. "I need clothes. And I still could use that drink, killjoys."

"Should I tell them?" Alvis asked.

"Tell them I'm fine. But I don't want to see anyone. Not my sister, and definitely not my ex-husband." He stood a moment then sat down again, raising a palm to his still dusty temple.

The expression on Alvis' face seemed to become something more, it was like he'd been caught in the act of doing something he really didn't want to be doing.

"Since when are you using comms?" Dutch asked, having stood and identified the item behind Alvis' ear.

"It's only temporary. As soon as communications are back up, they'll be too risky." He took a step back. "I have to go."

"They're just worried about you, Pree," Dutch said.

"Mm-hmm."

"Why do you have to be such a bastard, Pree?" Dutch came back to his side. "You disappeared."

"They have the resistance, I have the Royale." He took a deep breath and tried standing again. "They've both made that perfectly clear." He stood for a moment, but then sat again.

"Please, if no one is going to bring me a drink. I'd like you to leave."

* * *

Alvis slipped away quietly, as he did best. He heard John's footsteps come up behind him, and slow down. His thoughts were a jumble, mixing recent conversations and impending tasks. He wasn't sure what John was about to say and it took up a lot of space thinking about it.

"Hey," John said from close behind. "About earlier."

"Wreckside's a good name." Alvis' reply was automatic, he'd thought about that at least. He'd stopped walking, but he hadn't turned back to face John.

"Yeah? Thanks."

John's breath came short, but the man was fit, he didn't get out of breath so quickly. So Alvis turned to look at him. John was flushed, like he'd been as they'd put Pree on the stretcher. They hadn't spoken while in the tunnel.

"About earlier," John said again. He seemed embarrassed, and now Alvis thought he understood.

"You deserve an answer," Alvis said. He'd been honored with honesty and had not gotten a chance to respond above ground.

Apparently this was the last thing John had wanted. "That's okay, we don't have to— I just wanted to explain myself"

"It's fine," Alvis said, clipping his words. "You said you were here for me. Despite losing your brother, and Dutch, you're still sticking yourself out there." He wasn't sure if he was admiring him or being critical. He stepped closer to John and held out his hand. "I just wanted to let you know, I'm here for you, too. You aren't alone."

Alvis didn't move his hand while he waited for John, but began to count the beats of his heart in his eardrum, suddenly the loudest thing in the room.

After a long moment, John took Alvis' hand. As they shook hands, Alvis could feel John's own pulse racing and smiled at him slightly.

"Okay," was all John said.

They dropped hands and turned to head out again. Alvis had a lot of work to do, and couldn't spend time wishing things were different.

"May the Woods be with you," Alvis said quietly.

"Yeah, you, too." John's voice sounded unreachable.

* * *

Alvis left and John curled his hand against his pant leg, still feeling the lingering sensation there. When he'd gripped Alvis' hand, he'd felt something like a contented humming reverberate from the contact all the way into his chest. He cleared his throat and jerked his head back to the center of the hospital array to see what he and Dutch were doing next. But it all felt like they weren't trying enough. With Dutch swimming in dreams of a life long dead, she'd begun to fade away. She couldn't lead them in this anymore, but he wasn't sure he could do it instead. He wanted things to return to how they'd been before old hurts had returned.

* * *

Jakk is slippery.

It makes you feel like you're wrapped in warm velvet while someone else guides your feet along a burning tightrope. You can't fall down, you think. You can run a thousand miles on a flaming wire stretched taut across whatever chasm you've made in your life.

Until you do.

But now there was only light and energy, pure and wholesome.

Pawter lay on the couch inside Lucy and enjoyed the freedom of thought she thought she'd never regain. She'd passed off her last patient, carried her stuff above ground and now she was flying—in every sense of the word.

The shower had been scrumptious, her skin shone like starlight. She felt like a proper Seyah's daughter then, clean and brilliant and luxuriously laying down while someone else worried about the _how_.

She felt like this was _right_ , returning home to save someone she'd screwed up.

 _Mmmm, no, just misplaced._

She was very forgiving of herself when she was high.

The remnant of an argument itched her from inside her brain. She wasn't sure why they'd fought. They'd both wanted her to come on board, and of course she'd obliged. Jutch and Donny. Oops, other way around.

She giggled and it was a delightful sound.

Jakk was slippery and she was holding on tight. She'd cling to this as long as she could.


	5. Losing Control

Six years ago...

Dutch wanted to crawl into a hole and die. The glimmer of a life she'd scraped together for herself had been blasted apart. She didn't have the energy to humor the ship's AI, 'Lucy'.

Had she really chosen the name Lucy for herself before she passed out? She'd never been alone on a ship before, she certainly couldn't remember stealing this one. She pulled the zither toward her and onto her lap, noticing that it had some bloody fingerprints on it. Her face crumpled and she began to cry.

" _Dutch, what do you want to do?_ " Lucy had said there was a situation, but Dutch hadn't been listening.

"Grah! Lucy! I can't right now!" Dutch curled in upon herself and pressed her face to the instrument, smearing tears and blood, the metallic smell strong and wet, which only made her cry harder.

" _I predict we will be breached in 2 minutes. The intruder is very skilled._ "

 _That_ Dutch heard. "What?" She asked.

" _I woke you only because I feared that if you were alive, your life may be at risk. Weapons are in the starboard cupboard in the cargo bay._ " Lucy paused. " _I can arm the shield— too late, cargo bay opening._ "

When provoked into fight or flight, Dutch could be on her feet in seconds. She lunged for the latch of the door and found a familiar type of gun behind its door. She knelt behind the only thing in the cargo bay beside her instrument, a poly-armor trunk meant for storing cargo. Dutch cocked the gun and swung it down on the trunk's surface, pointing it at the slender break of light as the cargo door opened and let in daylight.

"For an advanced AI you couldn't figure out arming the shield yourself?" Dutch muttered. Lucy either didn't hear her or knew better than to answer.

The man who boarded looked deceivingly weak. His skin was freckled and tan from long hours spent in the sun. His hair was blond tipped, but most of all he _smelled_. He smelled like he hadn't bathed after crawling out of the cesspit that had made him filthy.

"Hello?"

 _Oh, gods, he was an idiot, too._

"Get off my fucking ship before I blow your _fucking_ brains out!" She stood and kept the gun on him.

"Ack!" He fell down— was actually so shocked that he _fell down_. "Holy hells, lady! Do you want to give a guy a heart attack!" He clutched his chest like he might die, and in the split second she relaxed her gun's aim, he pulled out a small knockout charge. Without hesitation she shot her gun. He screamed.

And screamed.

" _Could you please refrain from discharging weapons while on board?_ " Lucy asked. Dutch thought she heard a slight tremor in the machine's voice, but she couldn't tell if it was anger, fear or a glitch.

The man was still screaming, and when the smoke had cleared away, she could see the scorch in the metal plating he was sitting on. He was clutching his groin. With a disappointed grunt she held the gun with one hand, training it on him, and wrenched his hands away from his privates. She'd actually managed to only burn a hole in his pants. And still he was making a pitiful screeching noise.

"Would you shut up!" She shoved at him and backed away. "Get up, go on, get off my ship." She gestured with the gun toward the open bay.

"Lady! I need a minute!"

"You're fine!"

"You could have ended the Jaqobis line _before you'd even met one of us_."

She paused. "You were trying to break into my ship. I think I knew enough."

He checked the blackened hole that showed more of his groin than she needed to see. But above all, he was actually still intact. She hadn't been intending to kill him, but she was still upset, and he had threatened her.

"Actually, lady, I did manage to break in." He didn't get up though. "Are you wearing a wedding dress?" He asked. "Why is there blood on it? Are you injured?" The concern in his face looked so sincere it was almost convincing.

But Dutch didn't falter.

"I said: get off." She retrained the gun on him, solid stance beneath, pointed squarely at his chest. "My ship."

The man groaned, it was a weary and pained thing meant to express just how badly his day was going.

"Fine."

He slowly got up, thankfully leaving the knockout button where it lay, and made a bow-legged descent back down to the ground. Before he stepped off however, he took one look back.

"Are you okay, lady? You seem like you've had a heck of a day."

"I'm fine. I'm—" a sob escaped, "I don't— I'm not—" She clamped down on her errant tongue and wept silently, gun still trained on the intruder.

He sighed like he knew where this was going, even though Dutch didn't. He turned and took a single step a little further back inside.

"I'm Johnny. What's your name?"

"Dutch," she gasped. Her gun trembled, but was still pointed at him.

He tossed his bag several feet away as he came in and sat down on the metal grate floor.

"Do you want to talk about it, Dutch?"

* * *

In the present...

While Pawter was riding a very long high on the couch, Johnny took great care in his work, watching the screens as Lucy flew, double checking their itinerary, and doing his damnedest to avoid Dutch. She'd come in while they took off, and would reappear before they landed on Qresh, but he didn't mind the solitude. They'd fought again, less violently, while bringing the doctor on board. He'd never been so repelled by her. Even all those years ago, as he'd heard the first jumbled, sobbing recounting of her life, he'd never seen the death she'd hidden underneath.

Now it was all he saw.

Dutch came in just 30 seconds shy of Qreshi airspace, and was wearing a breathy, cream top more customary for Pawter to wear, very 'Qresh'. Her pants were tight, as usual, but a lighter color, something gray-brown. He looked at her, to catch her eye, but she locked into the navigational control and ignored him. She worked well and efficiently, answering the hail a split second after it came in.

"We're coming in hot. Tell Seyah Simms we have her daughter."

She pressed buttons for an atmospheric check, scanning the weather patterns and locking in their descent. Gravity took over, and they switched to high thrust and steered. Lucy could do a thing of magic on her own, but under his hands, she almost felt like a natural extension of himself.

If he left, he'd miss this.

They landed in the Simms guest dock, or one of them, and were greeted by a contingent of guards all wearing the Simms crest.

"The Seyah will meet you in the east foyer, please follow me." The man who gave the request, perfect honey-blond hair glistening under electric light, didn't seem to mean this in the polite way, but expected them to follow his command.

They were placed in the center of their escort, and John felt severely underdressed. He'd worn clean clothes, but between the shine on Dutch's boots and the lack of wrinkles in Pawter's dress, he might as well have been wearing a greased under-shirt and cut-off pants. The guard wore pristine white uniforms. He cringed inwardly and tried not to let his unease show.

The east foyer turned out to be a step up from 'the servant entrance.' It was near a the hanger but also lacking in any ostentation, and a maid was sitting on a bench next to the path reading, probably taking a break. She leapt up when she saw the guard. They ignored her. But when Johnny met her eye, she seemed to look at him with equal parts pity and awe.

The rest of the guard waited behind as the hair-model led them inside. He knocked and Pawter leaned toward one of the chairs, reaching for the armrest.

"Oh, no, Princess." Dutch pulled her close and the guard gave them a look.

" _Come in_ ," came the muffled response from within.

Inside, the Seyah was turned slightly from them, her face in profile as she looked out the tall window that shone late afternoon light onto map tables and austere chairs the color of a gray sea. She herself was wearing a dress the same color only a shade or two paler, and which made her eyes seem green. Her long, curly hair was loose, only pulled back at the temples, and her only jewelry was the royal crest on her finger. She had pulled her frothy white shawl more tightly around her when the door had opened, as though they'd brought a chill with them.

He was definitely under-dressed. How he longed for the anonymity of a monks robe just then.

The Seyah only had eyes for her daughter. She stepped forward hastily and the shawl dropped to the ground. She embraced Pawter tightly, ignoring Dutch and John.

"Illenore, how _good_ it is to see you again."

This struck John as discordant with their last exchange, but he knew better than to speak just then.

"Hey, mom." Her voice was still lazy from the last dose of Jakk she'd taken, cracking from exhaustion. Pawter slouched a little, undoing the elegance of her gown slightly, which was green like sea-foam. Her skin was porcelain, and her hair was like fire in the orange glow of the afternoon. She was really beautiful, and something inside John ached for her.

"Oh, Illenore." Her mother brushed tears off her own cheeks, and pulled back a little, but she didn't let go. "We don't have much time."

She pulled Illenore further into the room, away from the other three, and Johnny looked at Dutch. Her form was solid, she seemed more like a guard than Mr. Hair did. He had merely melted into the wall and stood unseeing beside the door they'd come through.

John felt so sad, between the tearful reunion and the heartache he'd put himself through, he wanted nothing more than to go back. He wanted to brush it all off and pretend they were the same people they had been before, but he thought he'd known all her secrets, and he couldn't fix this.

Not that he was trying to fix anything. He was done with putting patches on the holes other people blew in their lives.

The Seyah was whispering to Pawter who was nodding at everything her mother was saying, weeping as well now, and John grew a little concerned when she looked to him, her eyes big and wet. Her lip wobbled and she looked away, her hands to her face as her mother stroked her shoulders.

Without any prompting, the guard woke from his position and strode to exactly five feet away from Pawter and her mother. "Seyah," he said. "They're here."

They wrapped arms around one another and strode in simultaneous step back across the room. Dutch and Johnny parted to make way for them. There came a knock at the door a second before it was flung open and Company Police came in.

"Illenore Seyah Simms!" The first man to reach her took her arm and seemed to ease her slowly, but forcefully, out of her mother's grasp. "You are under arrest for the murder of Blaise Kenndry. You will be brought before the council and tried..."

After only a few words, the only thing John could hear was a loud buzzing. Everything seemed to slow down but remain out of his grasp. He couldn't make himself move, so he stood to one side, while Dutch stood with her hands behind her back, and Seyah Simms schooled her expression into something cold and uncaring. She'd been crying only a minute before, yet now looked like she was just flustered by the inconvenience of it all.

Pawter turned to John, her eyes begging forgiveness, and his heart broke once more. Time resumed, the Seyah, her guard and everyone else left Dutch and Johnny behind in the map room, and John felt numb again. His eyes felt dry, while deep inside him the ache had become a hollow.

"This is your fault," Dutch said, and Johnny thought he'd heard wrong.

"Excuse me?"

"You pushed her to come back, you pushed me to bring her, you and your damn—" She bit her lip and John remembered what it was like to punch her in the face. Her voice came out with a hitch as she said: "You did this."

Somehow Johnny managed to move his feet, one in front of the other, and return to the hanger. He couldn't fix this, he didn't want to try, and he thought that if he'd been less stubborn after Dutch's latest nightmare, resisted her withdrawal, Pawter would still be free. But these were pointless realizations. He held it together until he'd entered the undocking code and gotten clearance to sail. Then he put Lucy in charge and fell to his knees on the floor.

* * *

"Your vitals are very promising." Dr. Reed smiled at D'avin from her screen. "You recover quicker than average and have been giving stunning results in your field tests." She sighed happily, her face glowing rose-gold, gray eyes all sparkly.

"You're very pretty," D'avin slurred.

"And you're high." She checked her watch. "It should be clearing your system in a couple more seconds."

"No, you're always pretty." D'avin was feeling a little woozy, but he smiled and a comforting warmth blanketed him. But the fall was always quicker than the high, and soon he felt like himself again, boring but alert. She was still beautiful, but she was all professional grace; Dr. Reed was never anything but.

"Twenty seconds," she said. She disposed of the needle and jotted it down on her info pad. "Very good, Mr. Jaqobis. How do you feel now?"

"Normal," he said, a little surprised how quickly it had gone. "That was Jakk?"

"Went quick, didn't it?" She nodded, pleased as she listened to his heart. Then she pricked his finger and watched the blood test blink in her handheld device. She grinned. "It cleared your system at six-thousand times the usual rate. I have no doubt you'll be released very soon."


	6. Holy Dove

"Well, it's only your fault!" Dutch stumbled backward out of the bar, bottle still in her hand, and yelling back into the bright innards. "If you'd married outside your family, you'd have better eyesight! 20/20! _For sure_!" She hiccuped, hit the wall behind her and apologized to it, and then cursed at herself. The bartender came out after her and crossed his arms in the doorway of his establishment.

"Am I gonna need to get law enforcement involved, Killjoy?"

"I was merely patronizing your fine... _place_ -thing, fine sir." She tried to bow, but almost fell over.

"You're sloppier than a soldier on leave. Where are you staying tonight?"

"Under the stars!" She sang this in a loud, off-key voice. It appealed to her, being under the stars, and she started to tell him about the dream she had where her mother was among the stars looking down on her—

"Yeah, lady, I'm hailing the nearest cruiser to get you somewhere you can sleep it off. I'm not giving myself another killjoy headache."

She toasted him with her beer bottle and a discerning frown. When the bottle was empty she slid down the stone wall and onto the grassy patch beside it. "Thank you, sir! Another!" She found she was alone in the street and continued to frown at her bottle. When the label began taunting her, she lifted her arm to throw it but was stopped.

"Ah-ah-ah!" A guard suit and a patient smile stood before her, catching her throwing arm and easing the glass bottle out of her hand. "Sorry, ma'am, but there are _strict_ noise ordinances in place here."

She squinted at him, big lips and a pretty face. Big eyes she could gaze into for _ages_. "You have beautiful eyes, has anyone ever told you that?"

He laughed at least. "Not anyone nearly as deadly or _drunk_ as you." He bent down to loop an arm behind her back and pulled her hand over his shoulders. "Come on. We'll get you into a nice, comfy bed. How does that sound?"

"Will you be joining me?" She sloppily whispered this into his ear, and again, he laughed.

"Doll, I really wish I could, but you know that's not whats happening here."

She gave a sad little groan. "I know, but you are very warm and _so_ very... I forget the word."

"Yep. Come on." He walked her slowly as her feet floundered beneath her, gently placing her in the back of his electric cruiser and closing the door on her.

He drove slowly, wheels playing a vibrating rhythm over the cobblestones, and she dozed in a pleasantly soft place between being drunk and asleep. She watched the clean stone houses of town slip by; Medidas by night was like an ancient citadel untouched by enlightened invaders. The stars were bright even in the center of the city. She smiled and began to hum to herself.

"What's your name?" She asked her silent driver. She could only see his neck and chin, and a sliver of his starlit face. His skin was dark, like the night, but without the cold distance behind it, real like rain-dampened earth.

"Hector Feraanz." He glanced back at her, another brief smile. "I used to be on Westerly, but I was injured a few weeks back. Some dumb folks thought they could ride-out a black rain storm with me and a killjoy in a bar."

"You teamed up with a killjoy?" She mumbled.

"I'm also friends with a scarback." He winked. "Just don't tell my commanding officer."

She closed her eyes and dreamed of what he felt like under her. When she opened her eyes again, it was bright and he was reaching out hands to her.

"Come on, princess."

"Nobody calls me that," she said. Her momentum pulled her further than she needed to go, and she fell into him.

"Whoa! Come on, now, not much further." To his credit, he ignored her sniffing the nape of his neck while she had the chance.

They went through one sliding glass door and another, and to a suit behind a desk Hector merely said, "Drunk and disorderly. Non-violent."

They continued on until they came to the nicest looking cell Dutch had ever been in.

"Wait—" She snuck a sly look at him, her doe-eyes more closed than open. "You brought me back to your place, didn't you? Sneaky—" She reached out her arms.

With practiced grace he turned her away and laid her on the bed, folding her hands back toward her. "You need to sleep," he whispered. He unbuckled something and she was for some reason surprised to see her piece in his hands.

"You'll get this back when you leave," he said, tucking her blaster into his belt

He then pulled out a blanket and laid it on top of her.

"Feraanz." A voice drawled from the open doorway. "Please refrain from tucking in _every_ criminal who comes in here."

"Sir!" Hector whipped around smartly to salute the man in the doorway. "Just a drunk killjoy, sir."

Hector stepped aside for a second to let the officer see her, and she thought the light-haired, doughy man in the doorway looked a lot like Hills Oonan. But she closed her eyes against the bright lights and remembered what she'd been told: he died on Westerly.

"Hmm. Was she violent?" He even sounded like Hills.

Hector cleared his throat. "No, sir."

"All right, son."

Hector moved to the doorway and turned off the light before he left. The darkness was blissful. It was easier to imagine him in it, and to forget she'd seen a ghost.

* * *

" _John,_ " Lucy said, her volume low. " _Alvis is hailing you._ "

"Huh?" John sat up from his reverie on the floor and tried to remember why he felt like such shit. "Ugh. Lucy, how long was I out for?"

" _Only three hours, John. How are you feeling?_ "

"Like I somehow managed to fast-track my hangover." He groaned a lot more before he managed to pull himself to his feet by the flight chair, slowly transitioning from one position to another. His progress from the bridge to the bay was slow, and Lucy thoughtfully kept the lights dim as he stumbled through the ship. "Thanks," he said.

" _Of course, John._ " She was silent while he pulled a drawer open and ripped a packet, dumping its contents into a glass of still water. " _Remember you cannot consume any more alcoholic beverages for the next 24 hours—_ "

" _As per the Doctor's warning._ " He said, simultaneously as her, then continued. "Yeah, I know. So, tell me: what does Alvis want?"

Instead of answering, Lucy played a message. There was no preamble to it.

" _My comm-link will be offline by the time you hear this. The Company is already beginning to reestablish its presence, and will lift the usual frequency blockers shortly. I need you to take a look around when you land. You're still neutral in their eyes, the rest is between us. Meet me where I betrayed the traitor. I'll be waiting at dawn._ " There was a tiny crackling pause. " _I like you, Jaqobis. Don't go dying on me. I'll see you soon._ "

John exhaled, long and slow. "We still in orbit, Luce?"

" _Approximately 11 minutes away from Old Town. I've been conserving power, but we should refuel soon. If we stop in New City, I predict we will only be delayed 17 minutes._ "

"I'm not sure we have that time. Can we make it last until dawn, Luce?"

" _Yes._ "

"Then let's wait until I've gotten some intel for the poor scarback." He slung back the rest of his headache-eaze and strode more assuredly to the bridge. "You keep the seat warm for me, Lucy?"

" _Seat-heating has been turned off to conserve power._ "

"It was an idiom, Luce," John said quickly, frowning and feeling the absence of someone to laugh at his jokes. It would have hurt to look at the empty chair beside him, so he didn't.

"Lucy, record message:" She beeped. "Dutch, send me your coordinates when you're ready. I have to do something quickly, but just let me know and I'll be there... just as soon as you've stopped behaving a like a child and are ready to talk." He hit the button to stop and sent it.

" _Are you sure you're okay, John?_ " Lucy asked. " _I am detecting increased stress levels in your voice._ "

"Just help me land, would you?"

Old Town, alias Wreckside, was haunted by shadows and dust stirred up by unfettered winds. While coming down, John saw a Company plane where he'd parked Lucy last time, near the Prisoner Intake Facility. He kept going until he came to a zone big enough to suit Lucy and stable enough to hold her. He parked and carried nothing more than his side-arm and the spectacles that were too tight for his nose.

His progress across the damaged zone was slow and cautious. Almost falling through the surface despite the information he'd made available for himself could do that to a person. When he saw the Company post outside a tent, he made his way directly to them. No point in pussy-footing.

"Alvar!" He called out to her as soon as she turned to him. She looked better, like she'd slept in a real bed, and had eaten well already that day, but her light hair was still stringy and dirty. They each had their priorities, John thought. A shower would have made it onto his list before he went back to work.

"Jaqobis," Alvar nodded to him and continued her work. When he came up to her, she ignored him for a long moment before looking back at to him. "Can I help you?"

"Just curious what you're doing. Running a clinic?" John asked, his smile felt insincere but he didn't dare remove it.

"Something like that." She frowned and returned to her paperwork at the table. "Processing the folks who survived above ground. Anyone with injuries you've found can be sent here as well..." Alvar pointed to the tent where it was deathly quiet, then an abrupt cough and the flap of a curtain door in the wind relieved the silence. Voices spoke within, and the chill that had been crawling up John's spine vanished.

"Yeah, that's great." John swept his eyes over her roster, an upside down list of everyone who'd be aboveground— just what Alvis has asked for— but he couldn't get it from her without notice. And he couldn't memorize all the pages he couldn't see— presuming there were more. "Yeah, I'll send any I find." He patted the table twice in the spirit of camaraderie, and backed away. "You seen Cowan anywhere?"

"He's manning another station in the east." She paused, weighing her words and giving them to him gently. "If you're looking for anyone in particular, he's been combing through eyewitness accounts. He's got a longer list than I have."

John nodded thanks and went off, the sky turning a sickly gray as the night faded out. He considered trekking across the quiet rubble, the soft spots waiting to pull him down into the mines and tunnels beneath, just to try getting a copy of that other list, but knew he couldn't make it back to Alvis' rendezvous point if he went to Cowan first. So he headed toward the ruins of the Company building, where they'd once had docking privileges, and into an alley beyond, planning on looping back to get where he needed to be.

"John!" Alvar called out to him. She'd stood, a hand on her armored hip as she waited for him to look back. "Don't fall down a hole."

John wanted to thank her, or something, but she sat back down and ignored him. He went on.

* * *

Alvis was waiting, his cloak speckled with dew that had settled in the early morning. Another gray day was dawning, desaturating the monk and the life-less concrete.

"Hard to recognize the place without street signs," John said. He knew he hadn't taken Alvis by surprise, but the man lifted his head as though he were waking from a dream. "Sorry, were you— meditating?"

"Thinking is meditating," Alvis said, by way of not answering. "Dutch waiting on Lucy?"

"On Qresh, actually. I thought we could use some space."

Alvis lifted his eyebrows, drawing his own conclusions, but didn't say anything right away. Instead he asked, his voice like a mountain whisper, "What did you find?"

"They're tagging everyone who was above ground, making a list, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were tracking them somehow. There were these med-tents, a small one near here, in the west, but apparently there are more coming through in the east..." John waited until Alvis looked at him to convey the full weight of his concern. "They're tracking exactly what you're looking for. What's going on? What do you know?"

"Nothing," Alvis whispered. "I know too little." He stood, his feet making scuffling noises and John was relieved to see he was wearing shoes. He'd once seen Alvis go shoe-less in the winter.

"I'm sorry I couldn't—" John took a step forward. "I didn't think I'd make it here in time if I went to the eastern station. I can still go and bring you the list."

"That's all right," Alvis said. It didn't seem to be true, but John didn't retort. He wasn't the one whose hometown had been destroyed. "Fi is a much better thief than you."

"Hey, listen." John wanted to delay Alvis before he returned to his cloak and dagger. "I picked up some really fancy instant brunch or something while on Qresh. If you're hungry, I could give you some. Just for something different." His hands were becoming cold and jittery, so he stuck them in his pockets.

Alvis was still partly turned away, and he appraised John as he usually did, as an outsider. "I'm sure it's just as horrible on Qresh as it is here. Not even the company would feed it to their cattle." His nose was turning red, and he rubbed his arms against the cold. "But you know what, come with me, I'll deliver the message and I'll share some of the rations we dug up last night." He bundled up his cloak around himself and swept forward, eerily retracing his slow footsteps in the gravel and grit while John followed.

* * *

Alvis led John into the labyrinthine tunnels, mines jumbling with the service passages, everything further from the bunkers was more chaotic, and also dirtier. The brown soot of the mines had escaped and colored the puddles like dried blood, and covered everything. They didn't go to the map room John had last been taken to, but to a small room beyond a crack in a wall, behind another room. The first room contained nothing but crates of canned foods and dehydrated protein packets. Alvis shifted a tarp and the wall had parted and shifted to reveal a room whose other entrance had collapsed. John put on the blue glasses and looked around before he followed Alvis through. The room wasn't in danger of falling on their heads unless the Company decided to return with another payload.

The room was warm, but smelled of dust. Computers blinked and hard-drives whirred, screens running numbers and flashing images too quickly for John to make out. Ashtur was stooped over a keyboard and typed, her long black hair hanging loose. She turned and swept the hair that had fallen in front of her eyes out of her face.

"Everything okay?" Alvis asked.

She nodded and removed the pencil from her mouth. "Just tracking the communications channel. They're changing frequencies every hour again now. They haven't done that since before the bombing."

"Still jamming all channels though?"

"Mm-hmm. You here to relieve me?"

"As soon as you're finished."

She nodded once and stuck the pencil back in her mouth. She typed quickly and John wanted to peek over her shoulder to see what she was doing, but he was still the outsider here.

"You still want comms off?" Ashtur asked. She stood from the computer and cracked her back, the pencil in her hand for only one second before she swept up her hair and stuck it through.

"We knew we had to go back to messengers eventually."

She gave a great hearty groan as she reached out her arms and stretched. Not bothering to hide her once over of John she pointedly excluded him in her next question. "Need anything else, Alvis?"

"Just tell Fi to find me in the map room later. Thank you." He stepped to the console she'd been at, leaving John alone in the middle of the room.

"Got it, brother. I'm out. See ya later."

"May the Roots protect you," Alvis said before she'd ducked through the plastic curtain.

"You, too," she said, and disappeared.

For a moment there was nothing but the machines as Alvis looked at the monitors and John tried to take in the mix-match of technology. John almost asked if he could go back into the supply room, but decided he was his own man and Alvis had told him he'd be given food. Fair was fair. He returned with several different sized cans and found Alvis gazing off into space. John put the cans down with a rattling series of noises and Alvis came over. They sorted through the cans, most of them fruit. They pulled off the tabs and crashed the tins together, saying "Cheers."

The fruit was bland but syrupy. More color than substance, but a far bit tastier than dehydrated chicken.

"Want to sit down?" Alvis moved a bale of insulation away from the walls and pulled aside a thin curtain, revealing a crude bed of empty crates and fraying blankets. Alvis sat first and opened his second can of sweet nutrition.

Slowly a grin began to spread across John's face. "Wait, is this your place?"

"I don't really have a 'place.'" Alvis shrugged and poked intently at a piece of yellow before he ate it. "I haven't ever slept in the same place more than couple weeks. Although, I've been in the tunnels so long, I've probably reused the same nook or two over the years." He looked up and around, so John looked, too. "I've never been here before, though. Not that I can ever remember, anyway. I think this has always been part of the mines."

"You never worked in the mines?"

"A little, when I was younger."

They continued eating in silence. Beyond the sheer curtain the machines still blinked in green and blue, one or two steady red dots among them, their sources dead. Alvis tipped back his can, draining the syrup into his mouth.

John cleared his throat and got up, taking the empty cans. "Want more?"

Alvis shook his head, and lit one of the candles on a makeshift table. John placed the cans on the console, hollow sound low among the constant din, and saw the space Alvis called 'home' become illuminated. A few candles were enough to cast shadows on the walls and light the room from within. John watched Alvis remove beads from his neck and sit on his bed, he began to pray. He returned slowly back to the curtain that separated them. He waited, not wanting to disturb the prayer. He was trying to understand the bowed head, self-assured posture, nimble fingers running over the beads.

"What is it, Jaqobis?" Alvis didn't look up, still counting the beads.

"What do you want from me?" John pushed aside the curtain but didn't come inside.

"I recognize myself in you, Jaqobis. We're kindred spirits. You just ran away when you were called." He looked up. "Yet you push in where you aren't needed, becoming a martyr for those intent on destroying themselves."

"You don't know me." John's voice was low, and he felt anger pooling in him. But he didn't know why Alvis made him so angry. He'd proven it to himself, he'd let the situation with Dutch fester, avoided putting on bandages, forcing Dutch to heal the way she made him. It hadn't made him feel better though. _Why did Alvis presume_ — the monk interrupted his thoughts.

"We've known each other a couple years now, yet you never tried to be friends with me. John Jaqobis, friend to all but the rebel monk." Alvis' eyes flashed. "All because any time you were confronted with faith, you turned away."

"Thanks for the meal." John let the curtain fall and was halfway to the door when he stopped and turned back. "I'm not some pet you can call and play with, Alvis." The monk was still sitting so he came back and pulled back the partition, resting an arm on the wall. "You can't _make_ me be like you. Give me a book, tell me you've got my back, tell me you like—" he gulped. His stomach had become hot and his mouth went dry.

Alvis stood. He wore the same expression as always it seemed, but John hadn't realized it was an expression seeking its mirror, not seeing a stranger. He reached out a sure but careful hand, touching the side of John's face.

John felt like he must have stopped breathing for the long moment before Alvis came closer and kissed him. His heart was out of his control, but kisses were automatic, he just hadn't been expecting this one; his body hadn't caught up yet.

Well, his heart was certainly making up for it. The rest of him felt a bit lost and immovable.

He let the curtain fall, stepping into the warm, smoky room, into Alvis' arms, and let his own hover beside them, tentative because this was not at all what he'd been expecting. Alvis threaded his fingers through the short hair at John's neck and pulled his head back a little. Up close, his face was pockmarked from black rain and small lines traced the civil war he'd fought in his entire life. John finally unclasped the heavy cloak at Alvis' neck and resumed the kiss, pushing him back until he sat on the bed and straddled him.

"Okay," John said, pulling back but not untangling himself. "I get it." His breath was heavy, but he knew he needed to think this through. This wasn't a money transaction, and unlike his teammates, he was _always_ aware of consequences. Usually anyway. His train of thought got away from him as Alvis pulled his tunic out of his robe and over his head. It _was_ warm after all.

Alvis tried to catch John's attention again, kissing his jawline to his mouth, but John made a decision and stood up.

"I just need a minute to think," he said.

Alvis remained still, but he left his hands where they were, on John's hips. "Okay," was all he said.

 _Okay_ , John felt very warm and aware of the close proximity but he needed just a couple seconds here. _Uhh..._ Alvis kept his eyes up as he slightly moved his hands under the hem of John's shirt, grazing his abdomen, and hooked a finger into his belt. He bent forward, lifting the fabric slowly and kissed him just below the navel. There was sweat forming on John's brow in his concerted effort to _think_. "I just need..."

"Yes?" Alvis asked, looking up, his fingers on the buttons of John's pants.

John gave a ragged sigh of defeat and said, "Definitely."

* * *

D'avin walked beside Dr. Reed, following her pace while her long dark hair swung across her back. The hallway was brightly lit and clean. Being here felt like he'd checked into the finest hospital money could buy. He was dressed in brand new clothes, and when he looked down at them, he thought he saw a drop of green splash on the tile floor. Something came back to him, unbidden. Fancy, the asshole, laying on a table, his eyes black and dripping green. He stopped.

After a moment, Dr. Reed came back, the slow click of her heel the only betrayal of hesitation.

"Mr. Jaqobis, is everything all right?" She asked.

He didn't know why he was out of breath, but he panted as he said, "I don't know, I thought I saw someone I knew."

Dr. Reed looked around. "What, here?"

He shook his head to say no, but the image left him, and his breathing went back to normal.

"Mr. Jaqobis, will you be all right?" She touched him on the arm, and he was overwhelmed with how human the gesture was. A friendly face in a cold place.

"Yes, thank you. I don't know what happened." He smiled, an easy self-deprecating thing, like saying 'oh, how silly of me.'

She nodded like she understood.

They walked until they came to a door, identical to the others he'd seen, but different in that it opened before they'd gotten close enough to trigger any automated system. A slender woman with blue hair and smooth, creamy skin opened it. Her dark uniform made her seem severe and paler than she was.

"Dr. Reed, have you brought Mr. Jaqobis for the release procedure?"

"Yes." She held her head high as she continued. "Although it is my professional opinion that he does not need a wipe. He's fit to go as he is."

The blue-haired woman frowned. "That isn't procedure. It also doesn't seem wise, he's seen too much."

"Najik," a man's voice called from within the room, and the blue haired woman turned halfway to hear him. "Let Dr. Reed come in and make her case."

Dr. Reed gave a triumphant little smile and this made Najik's color rise. Still, she stood aside for Dr. Reed to enter the room and waited beside D'avin in the hallway while the door closed. Najik stared straight ahead, determined to ignore him. He could only make out the general tenor of the conversation, the happy way Dr. Reed spoke about him, and the patient way the man asked her questions. Every word became a muffled vibration through the wall.

Dr. Reed returned and Najik quickly went back into the room, ignoring both of them. Dr. Reed's face was bright, this was the happiest he'd ever seen her.

"You get to keep everything you haven't forgotten. Everything you've seen here." She looked at him then, and he realized, she looked at him with love. "You're going to be our first pure subject, untampered with after the procedure." She began to ramble, "Usually they take the memories from the procedure because it's long and difficult and subjects would rather remember before and after, but you've been—"

"Dr. Reed, would you please bring Mr. Jaqobis inside?" The man asked.

"We've had unparalleled success in your conversion," she hastily whispered as she took his elbow and led him into the room.

The door shut with a hiss of air, and D'avin saw two people stand silhouetted at the window by the bright reflection of sunlight on Arkyn. Najik's angry murmurs were unintelligible across the room

"Najik, enough." The man held up his hand to silence the blue haired woman.

She turned to look at them, her expression unguarded and spiteful. But she listened to him and took a step back, retreating from their discussion.

"Mr. Jaqobis, I hope you find the next part of our relationship to be as fruitful as I know it will be. We have much to offer one another." The man turned, but the glare still hid his face, even as he moved further toward them. "Dr. Reed has proven you to be a stellar subject, adapting well to the changes. We look forward to receiving your intel." He stepped into the lamplight, illuminating a silver head of hair above a kind but business-like face. "Welcome to level 6." Khlyen said.


	7. Afterglow

Six years ago…

They sat in silence for a long moment. The light had faded outside and Dutch was looking into space, her thoughts unknowable. Johnny was feeling a little overwhelmed.

"So this guy, Khlyen, trains you to be an assassin and then tries to kill you and your husband on your wedding night?" Johnny asked.

"Pretty much," she said, turning to him. Like everything in space, she was weirdly beautiful. She was still blood-stained and her face was puffy from the long time it had taken to tell her story, but underneath that, she was spectacular and impressive. He didn't doubt that if he made the wrong move, she would have found a way to hurt him. He remembered the burning in his pants and grimaced. "I just want to forget it all ever happened. What about you?"

"I'm just on the run from some low-life criminals, nothing some lightyears can't fix. I am footloose and fancy-free." They smiled at each other a moment, but then he felt his own past knocking up the anxiety dreams inside himself and wanted something new to think about. "Nice ship."

"Oh," she said. "Thanks. It's some sort of… flying class… thing…" She bit her lip and John could hardly contain himself.

"Tell me you know nothing about this ship and you need a navigator."

"I know about spaceships," she said, a little offended, but unabashedly out of her depth.

"Oh, you are quaint!" He stood and gazed around the rest of the bay. "It's definitely based on the newer stellar designs. Can I see more?"

"Sure." Dutch didn't get up though.

John headed to the door opposite the bay door and waited for it to open. It didn't. He waved his hand at the top, where he was expecting a sensor, but still nothing happened. He felt very silly, but he'd heard newer ships had voice recognition, even artificial intelligence, so he wasn't going to skip the possibility. "Uh, open bow door."

" _Identify yourself_ ," came the response.

"John Jaqobis,"Johnny said.

" _You are not a member of the crew._ "

"Uh, Yalena?"

" _Yalena is not a part of the crew._ "

"I wasn't talking to you!" Johnny snapped. Turning he asked, "Wait, why aren't you a part of the crew."

"The ship calls me Dutch, the ship is called Lucy. Lucy, meet my friend."

"John Andras Jaqobis, at your service!"

" _There is no need to yell, John. My microphones can pick up more sound than the human ear is able to distinguish._ "

"Noted," Johnny said dryly. "Please open the door."

" _You may proceed freely, as long as you have Dutch's permission._ "

Dutch was standing now and waved her hand. "Let's go take a look at this bridge."

She led the way and was barefoot, Johnny saw. He'd have to tell her it was a risk, all sort of metal splinters could be— his mind went blank.

"Oh my gods." He sat down heavily in one of the two seats in front of the control center, clasping his hands to his cheeks. " _This is brand new!_ "

"Er, wedding present."

"I am really jealous of your in-laws." His mouth remained open as he brushed his hands over the controls. "This micro-fitting is clearly to enhance the— oh, this dial alters the— oh, man, do you even know what this does?"

She shrugged. Then she sneezed and held her hand over her nose.

"Oh, hells, I smell, don't I?"

Dutch gave a twitch, something like a shrug but more self-conscious. "Yeah, a lot."

"Well, you look like shit."

"At least I don't smell like it, too."

"That is because I rode in the bottom of a cattle transport off my home-moon." He huffed. "But yeah, I know I reek. Do you mind if I use your shower before I head out again?"

"What?" she asked, clearly surprised.

He held his hands up. "No worries, I'll get out of your hair." He took one last look at the console and headed for the bridge door.

"No, I meant, aren't you gonna help me fly this thing?" She looked the slightest bit sheepish. "I really don't know much about flying my own ship."

He paused, half-aware of the beautiful things (clean things) he had yet to explore and the other-half aware of how much he stunk.

"So. I can shower?" He asked.

" _If you can contain your mess to the bathing area, yes._ "

He wasn't sure he was going to like working with an AI.

* * *

In the present...

When Dutch awoke her head was pounding, sunlight was streaming directly into her face and Delle Seyah was standing before her, dressed in a blushing pink robe holding a glass of water. Dutch tried to sit up too quickly and a gong went off between her ears. "Seyah!" was all she managed to say before putting hands over her face and collapsing back down into the down pillows and silken sheets.

"Please," Delle Seyah said sweetly, placing the glass of water on the bedside table. "What are titles between friends?" She frowned so abruptly that Dutch was confused a second.

"Are you being sarcastic?" Dutch covered her face again. "I'm too hungover to tell."

"Drink the water, I've put in a light headache reducer." She crossed her arms and was her usual self again. "It's almost noon and I need my guest room back."

"Expecting some visiting dignitary?" Dutch tried sitting up more slowly this time, just enough to comfortably drink from the glass.

"I'm _expecting_ the killjoy whom I bailed out of jail last night to not overstay her welcome." The mocking smile was firmly in place, and Dutch had to remind herself not to break her host's nose. Delle Seyah sighed. "I'm also not leaving you alone with my servants. They'd kill you if you were as brash around them as you are around me."

"Why don't you go get dressed, and I'll get my feet under me?" Dutch smiled as insincerely as possible.

Delle Seyah scoffed and left her alone.

* * *

Alvis woke long before John did. He lay on his stomach a moment, just watching John sleep in the warm glow of dying light. The color of a fading bruise was a mark John wore angrily, and bitterness didn't suit him; there was a reason they'd never heard of D'avin before he showed up and bad memories were awoken.

In the outside room, Alvis heard a rustle. He pulled on pants and walked silently across the dry, stone floor. He did his best to move the tarp noiselessly, but the intruder wasn't being very quiet with the pull tab on the can.

Fi looked up with a gasp when Alvis stepped through, but smiled at him. "Just me, Uncle. Ashtur said you shouldn't be disturbed, but I thought I could wait out here, maybe eat something."

Alvis waved his hand. "Come in for a minute. I have some utensils to eat with. And I need to ask you something."

The small girl followed Alvis into the computer room, she was so noisy he was surprised she didn't wake him just by coming down the tunnel. Her eyes went wide when she saw what was inside, mouth shaped in a little-o of wonder. "Are we spying on the Company, Alvis?"

"Only for a little while longer," he said.

Her eyes were bright with understanding. "You need me to do something, right?"

Her smile was infectious, so he returned it. He was mindful that if he didn't say this correctly, she might run off half-cocked and do something dangerous.

"I need you to steal something for me, but I'm not sure how you can get it just yet. Can you wait while I figure out the details?"

"No need, Uncle. Tell me what it is, and I'll bring it to you like _that_." She snapped her fingers.

He laughed lightly and held her face in his hands. "It'll be a little more than just that. If you get caught I might never see you again. Even if the plan goes well."

"That wouldn't be very helpful," she said.

"Exactly."

"Where is your mother now?" Alvis asked. "Can you stay with her for a little while?"

Fi huffed, gazing to the ceiling, he wasn't sure he'd ever seen her keep still for very long. But her small hands were useful and she could often become invisible.

"Fiona."

"Fine, Alvis. Hells, don't you trust me?"

"Don't curse." He gave her cheek a quick stroke with his thumb. "I trust you as long as you're in my sight."

"Oh, are you coming with me then?" She was turning on the snotty-brat act full force now. "Aren't you a fugitive on the run?"

"Yeah," he said softly.

The morning meet with John was supposed to have been his last day above ground for a while. It had been a disappointing dawn. He couldn't even be sure that he hadn't been seen, and that the Company was might already be hunting for him. Maybe it had all been a risk not worth taking, but John barely trusted him, he couldn't have sent anyone else.

"I can't finish this," she said, handing the half-empty can to Alvis. "Can I take a full one back to mom?"

"Sure." He looked through the cans John had put down on the console and handed one with berries to her. "She'll like this. Grab some crackers as well." He stood and patted her on the head. "I'll see you soon."

With the crinkle of plastic, she slipped away. Alvis returned to the alcove and blew out the remaining candle. He found the switch for the faint light built into the wall, diffusing sickly-yellow light through a metal cage. Looking at the figure in his bed, he saw the reflection of it in John's eyes. Alvis sighed and sat down softly beside him, wanting to lie down again. But now that John was awake, he felt he wasn't welcome anymore. Things always looked different under an electric light. Broken and not worth the time to fix.

"Is she yours, Alvis?" John murmured.

Alvis took a steadying breath. "No," he said, but he wasn't sure. "I don't think so." He had to look away from John whose earnest expression was unsettling. "Ashtur and I were together only once. It's unlikely she's mine, but there's always that chance."

He always felt a little vulnerable waking up after sex, and it had been a long time since he'd slept with someone he cared about. He didn't really want to be discussing the particulars of possible children he may have fathered with previous lovers. So he sat, his hand near John, but not touching him, while John was still naked under the coarse blanket. Different vulnerability.

"Hey." John propped himself up and pulled Alvis toward him. "It doesn't matter." He kissed him the way he had before, unhurried, lips dragging against stubble. Alvis only knew how tense he'd been when he relaxed in John's hands. He tried to cast his worries away with the steady beat of his heart and one by one they faded out. So he lay down again.

John draped his arm over Alvis' back and rested his hand on his nape, fingertips lightly playing with his hair.

"What gods did you have at home?" Alvis asked.

"Kra, Poam… and…" The struggle to remember was clear on his face. "A bunch I didn't give a shit about."

"Did no one worship the Woods back home?"

"They did, but it seemed so out of touch. Though I'd never met a scarback until I came to the Quad." John sighed. "Mom was big on believing. She thought it was the gods who'd sent my dad home from the factory because it burned down the week after he lost his leg. She also thought that the gods would give us back what we'd lost, even after we moved into a tiny metal shack and she started using—" he pulled back his hand. "She died of quinsy a few years later."

"Wasn't that two years ago?"

"Just about, yeah." John's eyes widened.

Was he really surprised? Alvis clearly remembered the brief mention Dutch had made; it had just been an off-hand remark, not meant to carry much weight. It was probably closer to three years now. Alvis always listened when people spoke to him. He needed to have that.

Alvis turned on his side, trying to push away the internal clock that had begun ticking when he began remembering. He had things to do, but he also had to do this.

"Just so you know, this doesn't have to be _more_. I'd understand." He reached out to stroke the hair at John's temple. He felt a little less lost while he was this close, but he knew better than to cling to it.

John had become very still. He then shivered like he'd caught a chill, pulling his arms back under the blanket. "Understand what?"

"If you were feeling a little lost, and if I was just a stop on the way…" Alvis' didn't dare look away. He didn't want to miss the silent answer when it came. "I'm not afraid of being alone. I think you are."

John hunched his shoulders, pulling the rough fabric that covered him up to his nose and finally closing his eyes. "Give me time, Alvis," he said, words muffled.

* * *

"Why aren't you dressed yet?" Dutch came into the boudoir she'd been escorted to last time she'd been in the Seyah's home.

Delle Seyah was posturing in front of a full length mirror while two women held up very similarly colored dresses. She wasn't even looking at the dresses, just holding up her hair and admiring herself.

"What do you think: should I wear my hair down?" She let her perfectly coiffed dark hair fall to her shoulders, curls bouncing beside her neck. Then she scooped it up again and twisted it effortlessly into a chignon. "Or up?" She kept her lips parted, slowly widening into a coy smile. Still standing with her hips at an angle, one leg poised in front of the other, black lingerie contrasting with pale tawny skin, showing off her curves in a way that was more elegant than provocative.

"I really couldn't care less," Dutch said. "Seyah."

Delle Seyah's posture collapsed and she stepped out of her slippers to walk flat-footed across the room. She waved her hand back to the girls and said, "Amber." Dutch wasn't sure if that was a name or a dress. They both bowed, retreating to a corner with their gowns. The Seyah came to stand in front of Dutch and put her hands on her hips. Now she looked provocative.

"What's the meaning of calling me in the middle of the night?"

"What? I didn't call you."

"Well. There were two of us last night, and _one_ of us was sober." Her smile was more charming now. Knowing but amused nonetheless. "You called from the holding cells, crying about Seyah Simms' kid and _begging_ me to help you. What else could I do—" She booped Dutch on the nose. "But help my _favorite_ killjoy?" She turned and walked back to the mirror, and a girl returned with a dress.

"So you know about Illenore Seyah?"

"I've been called to a _special_ meeting." She leveled a look a Dutch that indicated how she felt about that. "I'm to represent my brother."

"Your brother?"

"By the Woods, you really don't pay attention, do you?" She grinned, all teeth. "She killed my brother."

The dress went on in a flash of pale orange and browned-butter, satin fabric catching the midday light beautifully. A long sash was tied around her waist and knotted artfully in back. The scalloped sleeves only covered a tiny portion of her shoulders, and the Seyah was given cream gloves.

"Wear your hair up," Dutch said quietly, then turned to leave, but a word from the Seyah stopped her.

"Wait. Don't you need a ride home?"

"Home?" Dutch didn't risk showing her face, so she remained facing the door, her back to the Seyah and the room.

"I'll get you a shuttle. Go to the dock directly. Oh, and Yalena—" Dutch prickled at the use of her birthname. "That's two you owe me now. You failed when I called in the last favor."

"One and a half," Dutch replied coldly and walked out without even a backward glance. "This hardly counts for a favor."

* * *

John slept a few more hours. Finally waking to the voices having a conversation in the computer room. The wane light that had been on was out again, and he searched with some difficulty for his clothes in the dusky darkness. When he pushed aside the curtain, he was glad he'd put his pants back on. "Hello, Ashtur."

"John." She seemed more surprised to see him than he was to see her. "Hello, again." She turned back to Alvis who was back in full monk's garb, arms crossed while Fiona stood between them.

Fi was very surprised to see him. Her mouth dropped open and for a second she was quiet then asked, "Were you in there the whole time?"

"Yeah, I really needed a nap." John laughed.

"It's gonna be dark soon, you've been asleep a long time," she informed him.

John glanced at Alvis for confirmation, but he'd interrupted a tense conversation and Alvis was wearing a stern expression. He saw now that the hands Ashtur had on Fi's shoulders were protective. Was this about stealing the list? Any other conversation he'd been expecting to have was thankfully put off.

"You know," John began, stepping further into the room, "I had a thought about this while I was, uh, sleeping." Now Alvis and Ashtur were both looking at him. "I have some special lenses that can remotely take photographs from my ship."

Alvis scratched his head. "And you want to take pictures of the list."

"If I say that I found Fi hiding somewhere, and that I want to look for her parents on the list—"

"Wait, you said they might be tracking people, you'd better say she was hiding in the mines or something," Ashtur said.

Fi looked delighted. "I'm going undercover?" She looked to Alvis for confirmation.

A tiny smile had snuck its way onto his face, but he coughed and became serious when he realized Ashtur was also looking at him. "Only with your mother's permission, child."

* * *

Getting above ground was easy, and the early winter evening was already throwing long shadows in the murky ruins of Wreckside. With the connection to Lucy re-established, he got a snippy earful about what 'dawn' meant and gritted his teeth. Alvis turned away the goggles, as they had determined he should go a different route in case they were intercepted. John and Fi went carefully but directly to Lucy. She wasn't pleased to hear they weren't leaving to refuel just yet, either, and John had to actually ask for her to confirm that she would let Alvis on board before he could leave again. He grabbed the contacts as quickly as he could, testing their connectivity while he stood in the bay. Fi began poking around in a pile of junk Carlene had left in a corner and jumped when a spring leapt out at her. Blinking the contacts alive, all he had to do now was retrace his steps. It was time to roll.

Fi was perpetually dirty from the calf down, so selling her as an urchin was the least of his concerns. Keeping her from slipping out of the hand he held her with was harder. She followed as well as she could, and their path to the east station was fraught only with his worries about being led astray by his own technology.

Alvar was no longer taking the names at the table, and Johnny didn't recognize this new guard. Johnny slowed a little, pretending to circumnavigate some tricky cinder-blocks with Fi while he waited for the comm connection to give a beep.

Alvis was breathless when he called in. " _Sorry, I've just had your ship ask me if I knew what the difference between dusk and dawn is. I'm here, John. We're good to go._ "

Fi began to drag her feet, and John gave a silent prayer under his breath. He called out to the guard. The guard got up, hand immediately going for the blaster he wore, but he didn't lift it when he saw the girl. Yet his hand stayed on it and he warily watched them approach.

"You come for the census?" He called out.

"No, I was off-world and she was below ground. I found her in the mines while looking for some friends…" He made a pained expression. "Been trying to find her family all day."

"I miss my mommy," Fi said pitifully.

The Company guardsman looked uncomfortable. "You want some water or something? Not sure how I can help you two."

"When I came through here this morning Alvar told me you were keeping a list of those still living, of those who were aboveground." He whispered, "And others."

It seemed unorthodox to the guard, so he gestured for them to wait before he spoke into his comm. He was turned away, but they still got his half of the conversation. "I've got a man and a girl looking for some folks— Yeah. He said he knows you—" he turned to John, looking him over once before asking: "Jaqobis?"

John nodded.

The guard spoke for a few more seconds before coming back and begrudgingly beckoning him to the other side of the table.

John took the pad with stiff hands and said, as to himself, "Okay, here we go." The guard ignored him, and John began to flip through the pages, trying to read them without moving his eyes too much, hoping Alvis was taking the shots he needed. There were only about thirty names on the list, but he frowned at the end, shaking his head at the guard.

"Not on there, huh? Even among the, uh, others?"

"Nobody related." John sighed wearily. "They were supposed to be just a little further west of here, pretty near—"

"West, huh? That's where Alvar is now." He nodded, seemingly relieved. "They've got a much longer list. If you can get there soon, I'll give 'em a heads up."

"Thanks," John said. He gave a casual little salute and began to drag Fi along again. Once out of earshot he said: "You know, you could be a little more helpful. Dragging will not get us back in the warm any time soon."

"Being undercover is boooooooooooring." She said, thankfully having enough sense to keep her voice down.

John was overly cautious, but there was still a glimmer of gray in the sky when they made it to the illuminated tent. It was much bigger than the other one, and there were benches outside it. People sat chatting, so John was not challenged when he walked up to them. They walked slowly amongst all the survivors, looking at everyone before they went to Cowan. He jerked his chin at John and handed the list over. It was almost too easy.

"Come on, pipsqueak." Cowan held out a hand to Fi. "Let's get you a hot tea."

John's eyes lurched away from the list and Alvis swore in his ear at the disruption in recording. "I'd rather not let her out of my sight. I wouldn't forgive myself if she fell into a hole." His heart was pounding in his chest, but he let the fear out a little.

Cowan frowned at that, considering the girl who'd given her hand easily and the man who didn't want her to leave. After a moment he shook his head and John could hear the chatter again, the roaring out of his ears. "You and your strays, Jaqobis. I'll bring you a tea, little girl."

Cowan left John and Fi alone with the list.

"I hope you're getting this." John said under his breath, while Fi stuffed both her hands into John's warm pocket. She was dressed too thinly, and was already shivering. Alvis was mumbling in the connection and John snarled a little, hoping Alvis wasn't wasting the opportunity. He blinked regularly, keeping his eyes still on each page for a long moment before moving on. Alvis had gone quiet again, but he didn't risk talking to himself again.

"You see anybody?" Fi asked.

"I hope they really get everyone." John said, hoping the message came through to Alvis.

" _Yep, getting everyone_." Alvis replied. " _Clear as day._ "

John let out a sigh and switched off the tablet, putting his free hand into his pocket with Fi's. Her little fingers were cold. Cowan returned and almost seemed sad, understanding the situation as one of grief and not relief.

"Yeah?" He asked, handing Fi a cup.

"Yeah," John said, keeping his mask in place. "Thanks for your help, man."

Cowan bobbed his head. "Of course, man. It's shitty." He looked at the list in his hands and John thought it safer to depart, moving between people and to the edge of the light. But then Cowan called out: "Wait."

John felt the chill creep back into his blood, but he forced his features into a calm curiosity, and looked back to the harsh light Cowan stood under.

"Whats the family name? I'll keep a look out."

Panic flared up inside him, and blood began rushing. He had seen dozens of names, how could he be sure he didn't accidentally say one of theirs? The comm twittered and Alvis spoke, " _Say my name. Say 'Akari'._ "

"Akari." John called back. "Her father was Akari."

The people outside the tent fell silent, and several peered around John to look at the little girl beside him. Many, if not all, still thought Alvis was to blame for the bombing of Old Town. Cowan just looked shocked. John ducked his head, and they went back the way they'd come.


	8. Ripples in the Black

"How do you know this is going to work?" Najik lay on a sunbather's chair by the pool and had surprised Khlyen when she'd spoken. He'd assumed she was sleeping.

"She'll come around eventually." He smiled, but she didn't buy it, lowering her sunglasses and sitting up a bit, leaning on one of her barely-tan arms. She wore a black two-piece suit, more suitable for lounging in than actually swimming, her blue hair perfectly coiffed, as usual.

"You realize you're now banking on the weakness you once wanted to drive out of her." She leaned back. "Funny how you always, eventually, adapt to the mistakes others make."

Funny that she didn't look nearly as deadly as her wit.

"If you don't mind, sir, I've got another hour before I go back to work, and with you I never know how long we'll be on a civilized planet. I'd like to soak it in while I can."

He left without saying anything. Climbing the steps and crossing the lawn, he headed for the garden door. It swung open, but wasn't automated, a young servant stepped out and held it for him. He'd probably been waiting for him since Khlyen had left to talk through the plans with Najik once more.

The afternoon sun filtered into the room, the lamps were not yet lit, so Khlyen might have missed the Seyah where she sat in one of the hooded chairs. Might have, if he hadn't bred such inane oversights out of himself, if he hadn't been taught by a master.

"It's a lovely day," she said.

"Yes, Seyah." Khlyen snapped to attention, but remembered himself, and rested more comfortably with his hands behind his back. Old habits. "I'm sorry, I didn't see you there," he lied.

"Hmm." She stood, and revealed the long and expensive dress she wore, her hair undone with a simplicity that spoke of a servant pouring hours into its maintenance. He knew how these rich ladies lived. Delle Seyah was no different.

"I'm just on my way to the observatory, checking on things, Seyah."

"That's why I'm here as well." She stepped into the sunlight, closer to him, and he wondered how similar they were. "Checking on things," she whispered huskily.

"All is going to plan, Seyah." He smiled, almost smirking. "You can trust me," he said, knowing very well that she didn't trust him any more than he trusted her. "I'll let you know when we're on the next step."

She nodded her assent and dismissed him.

* * *

" _Dutch came back while you were out_ ," Alvis said. This was the only warning John got in the twenty minute walk back to the ship with Fi. It was a cold, dark evening and he'd given her his jacket and entered the bay grateful for the little warmth Lucy spared while in power-save mode.

"Do you know how desperately we need to refuel?" Dutch asked as soon as she laid eyes on him. "Lucy wanted me to go to New City without you." She stood in the center of the hold, arms crossed.

" _I didn't say that, Dutch._ " Lucy was still miffed, however.

Dutch looked like shit, her face puffy from drinking and lack of sleep. Her hair was unkempt. She was probably overdue for a shower, John knew he was. He could feel sweat and dust in every pore of his being.

"You were gone _all day_. All day! Where were you?"

John glanced to Alvis who stood at the monitor, who interrupted his work to meet John's gaze.

"Alvis, you're going to need to change clothes before you take Fi back." He walked straight past them, guiding Fi, still wearing his jacket, to the couch.

Dutch and Alvis had both followed him and for a tense second John was afraid she'd start an argument in front of Fi. Luckily, the little girl spoke first, addressing what she probably felt was harsh treatment by Dutch.

"He took a nap in Uncle Alvis' bed. He said he was really tired."

Dutch's eyes drilled into him. "I'm sure he was." But then she snapped her attention to Fi and her entire demeanor changed. "Would you like something to eat, Fi? I think I might even have some bread around here."

* * *

John went to his room and Alvis came with him. The door whooshed shut again, but John didn't turn, going into his locker and considering the plethora of dark shirts he owned. They were somewhat similar in size, but it was cold out—

"If you think things have to change now, they don't," Alvis said. "If all you needed a distraction from your brother and from Dutch, that's okay."

John was perplexed by this, but couldn't manage to say it, only looking at at Alvis in confusion.

"You don't have to be nice about it," Alvis continued.

John shoved a pair of shirts at Alvis. "I'm _not_ being nice." He was actually beginning to get angry. "What are you getting at? I can say, 'oops' and we'll pretend it never happened?"

"I'm being serious." Alvis was always serious.

John tore into the space beneath his bed in search of his only other pair of pants that weren't bloodstained. He couldn't find it. He tried reasoning to himself that dark stains on black pants were invisible at night. He came across an old pair with a hole burned in the crotch. He wadded them up, standing with them clenched in his hands. He felt so incensed that he wasn't sure he could do anything but cry. He paced instead.

"Who's trying to run, here?" John asked. "Yeah, I'll admit this blindsided me, but I'm not digging for excuses. Why are you?" He finally stopped and looked at the other man. "What do you _want_ , Alvis?"

Alvis uncrumpled the shirts in his hands, looking around the room— _for what?_ — before he sat on the bed. "I want to know you feel the same way…"

"Wasn't that _clear_ earlier?" John dropped the trashed pants and came toward Alvis, wanting to take his face in his hands and embrace him. Alvis only brushed him off.

"How am I supposed to know the difference when we barely spoke before—?"

"It's never 'just sex' for me. I sleep with people I like, I can't—" He pulled his only clean pair of pants out and put them in Alvis' lap. "Since that time in the tunnels, since you gave me that book… Didn't you notice things were different?"

This time when John reached out for him, Alvis let him run a hand over the braids on his head, pull him close and kiss him at last.

"You should get dressed," John whispered in his ear. "I still have to deal with Dutch."

"You don't want to just get naked instead?" Alvis joked. But he obliged.

John pulled the undershirt down over Alvis' head first, kissing him again when it was on. He handed him the waffle-weave long-sleeve next. Alvis looked so unlike himself in dark colors.

"Do you have any clippers?" Alvis asked.

John pulled them from the drawer under his sink and looked at Alvis who was stony-faced. "Your braids?"

Alvis took the clippers and buzzed his head without another word. The braids came off and he held them out in one hand, the clippers in the other. "Voilà." He tossed the hair in the sink. "But what I said before stands, nothing has to change."

"Like hells it does." John grinned. "You used to freak me out."

Alvis' eyebrows rose. "And now?"

"You scare the shit out of me," John said and kissed him.

* * *

Fiona disappointed Dutch in her ability to eat, only managing a single slice of the soft white bread they'd brought back from Leith. Warm under a blanket on the couch, she fell asleep and Dutch left the lounge. She first went to the cargo hold, fully aware that going at John as she was, her emotions roiling, would be like running at him with a knife. For years she'd kept herself clean, and now she'd become tangled in too many of other people's problems. Her priority was Khlyen, and D'avin was a calculated side project. She had to make John see that she had this handled, and it was mutually beneficial for things to resume their natural order. They'd been a great team before— it had been so natural. Couldn't they just keep doing _that_?

She walked quickly, passing the lounge and the stairs to the bridge. John's room was, what— off limits? She hesitated and knocked. The door opened without much delay and John, self-conscious, stepped back from the bed where Alvis was sitting. Alvis stood, his hair shaved short and regarded Dutch very differently than he had in his Westhole cell. John had become something more under Alvis' attention, and it bit her like a viper to realize that Alvis was at least partly to blame for the discord between her and John.

"Johnny, could I have a word, please?"

"'Get out, Alvis,'" the monk said in a deadpan and got up. He brushed his fingers against John's hand as he passed him.

When the door hissed shut behind Alvis, John looked at her angrily.

"Was that necessary?" He crossed his arms, his stance firm.

Dutch remained impassive. "After your last bad idea, I thought we should go back to square one: let's trace our way to him from the source."

"No. You do not get to put Pawter's arrest on me," he said, slashing the air violently with his hand, completely ignoring her suggestion.

She shook her head, angry disbelief already crowding in on her. "Did you know that Pawter had killed Delle Seyah's brother? At the very least, you knew what she'd be facing back home because you told me! You were just desperate to test out your boyfriend's lead."

"Go shank yourself, Dutch." He turned away, walking to his bed, but she hounded him.

Less than a step away from pulling him back, spinning him around to face her, she stopped herself and took a clarifying breath. She remembered her original aim, wanting to end this feud, and tried to appeal to the man she'd known so well.

"Come on, John, we can do this! When did the hunt stop being fun? It'll be like old times."

When he looked at her, she saw in his eyes the hurt she'd caused just then. Subconsciously she realized she hadn't given him time to recover from the last blow.

"Fun? We haven't had _fun_ in a while, Dutch. Things stopped being _fun_ when Khlyen came back, and I kept hoping we'd find our way back." He stepped closer to her and his voice dropped. "But I have no illusions about that now. There is no way back from here."

"So, what?" Her voice was low, she felt dangerous. "You find religion and now you know better? Was Pawter penance? A pawn sacrificed to right the balance and have the universe spit your brother back out at you?"

This time she had felt the fight simmering. She saw the tightening of John's fist and caught the punch with both hands as it came at her. His arm locked and she shoved back at him, and he let out a grunt of pain. But John had slept better than she had and was back within the second. She crouched beneath his next swing, twisting to push her back against his abdomen and trap his arms against her. He shoved her face-first against the wall and all the air came out of her in a burst. She felt dizzy and stumbled while John backed off.

"You need to clear the fuck up, Dutch. You're losing sight of yourself _and_ of Khlyen." He had already caught his breath, but was still standing away from her, his hands on his hips.

"You need to follow my orders, John," she said, moving slowly to hide the vertigo that lingered. "You need to get your priorities straight. You can't fight for your brother while helping out in Alvis' revolution. This is what you get for making friends with the people you sleep with."

"Pawter isn't a lost cause." John ground the words out, jaw tight.

"Whatever you're trying to prove to me by sleeping with Alvis, why not just tell me? Stop throwing temper tantrums, you stubborn child."

She flinched and John's fist hit the wall behind her. He groaned and she waited for retaliation, fists up, protecting her face.

"I didn't sleep with him to get back at you. Not everything I do is about you." He faked a jab, she dropped her shoulder and he hook a foot around her knee. She came crashing down and he stood above her. "You gave up on us, so I gave up on you."

The angle wasn't good for much but a cheap shot, but she took it, and he barely managed to protect his groin, the blow glanced off and he lost balance. She was up off her back with a kick up, grounding herself and placing a roundhouse kick on his chin, but he stumbled back before it hit and caught it. She spun as he tried to flip her, landing face down on the ground. He grabbed her shoulders from behind and lifted her up. She pushed back, quickly slamming him against the wall twice and he lost his grip on her neck. She was panting heavily now, while he clung to the wall for support. She backed away.

"I learned a long time ago that I have to go my course alone. Khlyen took everything away from me. When were you going to realize: you could never fix me."

"When did you come to that brilliant conclusion?" He raised his voice. "At what point over all the years that we've known each other did you decide to shut me out?"

"You never knew, Johnny—"

"I knew." He despaired and it still hurt her a little to see it.

"No, you didn't." She knew her composure would fall if she said it, so she clamped her mouth shut.

"What he made you do, that wasn't you, Yalena."

That was _wrong!_

"BUT IT WAS ME!" She came up to him again, and he braced himself for the next hit. "I was there, I know what I did! I can't blame him for—" she raised her fists, but then rested them feebly on John's chest.

"He's never let me go! He was waiting for me, I'm not far enough. I did horrible things, Johnny, and I've been pretending I could just let it go—" she lowered her crying face to her hands— "but I can't run from the monster that's inside myself. That's not him, that's me."

It was a long moment before she felt him pull her close and cradle her in his arms. She cried soundlessly.

"I poisoned and maimed. I did worse things than just kill, I stole from people's souls and never gave them peace. I've been carrying them around with me, instead of letting them rest." She began to shake. "The only reason I don't kill myself is because I worry that I'll trap them in some hell with me."

He hugged her more tightly and she just cried. There hadn't been tears like this since she was a child. It was uncustomary relief. A confessional respite.

"There's nothing left to fix, John. Just give up already," she whispered.

He began to stroke her hair. "Never."

* * *

D'avin walked with automatic steps through the outskirts— no more than a shanty-ville, really— into the wreckage that had once been Old Town. It was dark and he couldn't see much, but somehow he could see the cracks in the foundation that lay beneath his feet. He easily stepped through blackness and avoided invisible holes, jagged glass and twisted metal. He could see through the night, and beyond. He felt the knowledge of what he saw and what it meant course through him like an effortless survey of his surroundings.

He was the same man, but now he stayed alert without a second thought.

He knew it was cold, but it barely bothered him, temperature running across his skin like a slight breeze more than wind chill. _Nothing to report_ , he thought.

A strange thought to have.

The desolation had changed Old Town so much, but he found the way back to Pree's bar well enough. From there it wasn't a long way to…

Their docking privileges meant nothing now. How would he find Lucy? How would he find his brother and Dutch?

He knew he should be panicking, but he wasn't. There was a pervasive calm which colored all his thoughts, leading him to scan the midnight horizon in search of light. A tent flapped but was empty, he knew that from half a mile away. But then, he heard voices carried on the wind.

He kept going on, hearing the sound of voices radiate from beneath him now, barely watching where he stepped, just knowing which step would be safe, which was treacherous.

 _Man, I would be so freaked out if I saw myself right now._

And a wave of calm washed over him. He kept on going.

He found Lucy dark and quiet, parked in the husk of a grainery, somewhat protected from normal eyes, especially in the pitch of night. When he approached, the bay door opened, and the familiar dim light welcomed him inside.

" _D'avin?_ " Even Lucy was surprised to see him, and he'd only been gone a week.

All he wanted was his bed. He passed a man and child asleep in the lounge on the spacious couch. Some pale looking man with dark clothes and a shaved head, curled up with a darker skinned girl who'd fallen asleep on his stomach. D'avin moved on. The bedrooms were all closed, and he went to his room without waking anyone. He dropped the small pack he'd been given to the floor, kicked off his shoes and fell onto the blankets fully clothed.

"What did I miss, Lucy?" He asked.

She responded quietly, " _They missed you, D'avin._ "

"I missed you, too." He said with a sly smile, and he closed his eyes falling quickly into a dreamless sleep.


	9. Fist to Heart

Six years ago…

" _We don't have to stay here. We can fly away and never look back."_

The words echoed in the night as Dutch tried sleeping and John asked polite questions of the AI, Lucy. They'd set a course for someplace far away that they'd never heard of. Hope was that the system had room for an assassin and a thief.

Though, Johnny preferred to think of himself as a self-taught geek. Thief was a new addition to his repertoire. He also knew that Dutch was not really an assassin. After a shower, they were pretty close to becoming business partners.

They had learned bits from each other as they hopped from moon to moon in search of food and fuel. Johnny had a brother who disappeared when he joined the army, Dutch hadn't seen her parents in years. She taught him hand-to-hand combat, he taught her the controls on her new ship.

Johnny envisioned a hired-gun type future for them, doing work for the highest bidder, never cooling their heels long enough to get into trouble.

Dutch just wanted to keep moving until she could shake the unclean feeling that no water would ever wash off her. Johnny was a welcome distraction.

On a pretty little moon in a system called 'D1' after its dying dwarf-star, they hustled stolen antiques from one mobster back to another and had enough daylight to drink while they refueled. They found a dusty bar off the main road fitted with the same thick insulated walls and double-glass windows like everywhere else in town. They were told it got cold after sunset, they didn't plan on staying long enough to find out just _how_ cold.

The bar sold watery beer and some grain alcohol that was basically paint thinner, but they said it was made locally. They drank their pints with disappointment and half-listened as off-worlders and local businesswoman talked pleasantries before slipping upstairs. The bartender was a broad man with a ruddy face cleaning the same glasses over and over as he laughed and listened.

Someone who could have been his brother came in and was greeted with raucous booming voices crying "Big Joe!" and pats on the back. He looked a little sallow, but smiled effortlessly, his beard lending him a cheery demeanor. After he drank a whole pint in a single motion, the pink returned to his face and he fit into the crowd. His clothes were clean and dark, cut for efficiency, and while he may have once lived here, Dutch saw in him a man who could make his home anywhere.

"I don't think I can drink another," Johnny said, burping unhappily and pushing the glass back at the bartender.

"What, our brew not good enough for you, off-worlder?" the bartender asked, but he didn't expect an answer.

Dutch smiled and held up her half glass. "Only time for one, I'm afraid."

"Oh, shit, Dutch, he saw us," Johnny whispered. "He's smiling. He's coming over!"

"Who?" Dutch asked, knowing better than to whirl around.

"The big guy—"

"Big Joe, they call me."

When Dutch turned she was surprised to see the pleasant grin faced at her, like she was something unusual he was happy to glimpse on this rare occasion. Johnny just knocked the bar and signaled the bartender. He wanted to pay before the bar fight broke out. It had only happened once before with Dutch, but it had started something like this, and the bill had been completely unfair.

"I'm Dutch and this is my partner, Johnny," she said coolly, like they were dignitaries at a court mixer. Everything was politics.

Johnny just tried not to look piqued.

"Joseph Siano. But as I said—" Big Joe took the beer the bartender handed him and drank a huge gulp. "You two do the Gills Farm job this morning?"

"Just some light legwork," Johnny said, a little nervous and not hiding it well.

"You did good." Joe gave a nod. "Easy work for off-worlders. Being affiliated makes everything harder, yanno? Your cousin is in the mix with this guy who shot that guy, who is your partner's ex." He shrugged. "Neutral party always has a place in these conflicts."

"Uh, yeah," Johnny said, not sure what to do with small-talk. He was still waiting for Joe to grab Dutch and lose a finger.

"You two looking for a more permanent situation?"

"We'd rather keep ourselves untied." Dutch smiled cordially and stood, leaving the rest of her beer. "Roaming around suits us."

"Me, too. So does a full belly," he said. "I know your type. And both of you, generally. You only buy beer because you can't afford more without knowing where your next paycheck is coming from. And there's been word passed along in the outer rim about you two, amateurs beating whatever bush you come across. Nothing strictly illegal, but it's only a matter of time before someone puts you in harms way to suit themselves. If you're serious about what you do, I can get you into a better situation."

Dutch didn't feel a reason to distrust the man, but she knew some words were too good to be true.

"Joe, what exactly are you offering?" Johnny asked.

"An introduction. I do work for an organization that is unaffiliated with any cause, system or company. We go wherever we're needed and do whatever work suits us." He leaned in. "There's always a job waiting. Never an empty belly or cup."

Johnny looked at the splash left in Dutch's cup, while Dutch's gaze never left Joe's.

"I think you could hack it. You'll test into Level 1, maybe Level 2 if you're as good as I've heard—" he pointed at Dutch. "And I'd be willing to sponsor you."

"Her?" Johnny asked.

"Both of you," Joe said. He crossed his arms.

Johnny was strongly considering drinking the rest of Dutch's beer and Dutch was still standing.

"Well. Whaddya say?"

Dutch grinned.

* * *

When they entered the dock with their ship, Johnny and Dutch didn't exactly know what to expect. The station they'd flown to was akin to a massive battleship, the likes of which Dutch had never seen before in person, with hundreds of people coming and going. And what's more, they were told, this wasn't the only one in the J star-cluster; the Rack could be found all over the galaxy.

"Known colloquially as 'the Rack', but stands for Reclamation Apprehension Coalition," Johnny said. "I guess 'reclamation' and 'apprehension' kind of covers the whole shebang."

"We're legal bounty hunters," Dutch said, pleased.

"Well, not yet." Big Joe stood with a grin like a crescent moon and his hands on his hips. He was wide and tall, certainly no one you'd want to brawl with at a bar, and yet he seemed more like a teddy bear than a something that would maul you. "You guys find the place okay?"

"Yeah, no problem," Johnny said.

They had followed coordinates and then been directed into a slot where they locked in and had to give the name of their sponsor, Joseph Siano, and wait for confirmation. They'd called ahead anyway, so Joe had been waiting for their hail. This place had the type of security measures royalty could only dream of.

As Joe led them out of the wing of hangars, Johnny caught Dutch's eye and they shared a look: only a couple weeks into their partnership and there was this easy way for them to understand one another. So they said, ' _If anything happens and you want out: no questions, I'm by your side.'_ It was a wonderful feeling to have.

They were separated for their evaluations. Dutch put her head down and pressed forward, doing what was asked, and improvising wherever she could, hoping to make a great impression. Johnny floundered a little, but his training with Dutch over the last few weeks paid off in the end, he wasn't kicked out of his evaluation anyway. They were reunited with Big Joe in an interview room. There was only a brief moment for checking in before the door opened and a white man only a couple inches shorter than Johnny came in.

Dutch and Johnny stood up, while Joe remained seated. He eyed the man warily as he came in.

The man had a cropped reddish-blond hair and a clean-shaven exterior that spoke of no-nonsense, and the careful way he walked was self-aware in a way that Dutch was familiar with. He knew how to move, he was mindful of every step he took, and of every twitch in the room. You would not be able to get one-up on this man easily.

"I hear you've brought us some new recruits, Joe." The man smiled a little, and revealed himself not to be unkind, even if he was very serious.

"We're getting old, Turin. We need some fresh blood." Joe spread his hands, but he looked cocky rather than mournful.

"Speak for yourself." Turin's incredulous smile was slightly mocking. He glanced at Dutch and Johnny who were still standing at attention from when he came in.

"Yeah, which one of us is leaving field work for a cushy office job?" Joe's grin was infectious however, and Turin couldn't help smirking. "Congratulations to you and your wife."

"Thanks, but you're still not getting an invitation to the wedding," Turin said and Joe pretended to swear.

Turin finally turned to the very patient and very nervous. Johnny and Dutch were about an equal mixture of both.

"As for you two: Johnny Jaqobis and Dutch."

Turin let the silence stretch, his easy smile gone. Beside her, Johnny gulped.

"Welcome to the R.A.C.," He grinned. "As soon as you make clear to me what you want from the R.A.C. and swear your oath, you are pretty much set up. You two ready for this?"

"Yes, sir," they both said in relief.

"Why are you joining?"

"We heard we could do what we do best and get a steady paycheck for it," Johnny said.

"I could really use a job. And I'm not good at much else," Dutch said.

Turin looked at Dutch, addressing her alone: "And what's that?"

"Punching things, running fast," Johnny quipped.

"I asked your partner." Turin jerked his chin. "Dutch? What is it you're good at?"

"I play music, I dance and I fight to survive. Point me to the orchestra." She gave him a smug look, playing their luck. He seemed to be in a good mood.

"Ha!" Turin yelped. "Okay then! Fist to heart. As of now you are nobody's citizen, nobody's soldier, you renounce all loyalties except these: our code, your team and the warrant. How do you swear?"

"I will take no sides, take no bribes: the warrant is all." Dutch and Johnny recited the oath simultaneously.

"Congratulations. John Jaqobis, you've been cleared for level one." Turin handed him a badge, and then shook his hand.

Joe seemed to have expected this and shrugged, even as John began to smile, marveling just thinking about his new status in life.

"And Dutch, you've beaten a record." He canted his head a little to the side, his smile small. "You are the youngest person to ever be cleared for Level 5."

"Turin was…" Joe looked between Dutch and his friend in surprise.

"You've certainly knocked me down a peg," Turin said, but he seemed to be taking it well even as Joe gawped at Dutch with completely new eyes. He handed her a badge and took her hand. But instead of shaking it he stared her right in the eye, not a trace of fear. "You've got great things ahead of you. Good luck." He nodded to them both, and then opened the door, saying over his shoulder. "See ya, Joe."

For a moment they just stood in stunned silence. Dutch felt something like a frying pan resting in the bottom of her stomach, even as Johnny and Joe seemed unsure what to do with her.

"Well, congrats to us, I guess," Johnny said quietly, fiddling with his badge.

"I learned how to duel in the royal court at home," Dutch lied, not looking at Joe.

"Well!" This seemed to bolster Joe a little, and he let out a breath of air with a soundless laugh. "I'm sure there's plenty you both can still learn. Johnny, they do training camps which allow you to level up at the end. If you want, I can get you set up with the next session."

"Really?" Johnny would probably have kissed Joe in gratitude, but he barely managed to hug him before Joe was pushing him off. "Thank you! Oh man, that'd be great! Then I could be level two, which still isn't level five, but, wow!" He began to glow with happiness and it took him a great deal of effort to not start doing a jig.

"While you're doing that, I'll take your partner, excuse me, your _boss_ for a tour of the local planets. We can swing by to pick you up in eight weeks when you're done."

"Huh? How long?" The color began to fade from his cheeks.

Dutch didn't say anything. She was doing all she could to temper the storm that was boiling inside her.

* * *

They spent most of the next two months in a small planetary system called The Quad, hopping out occasionally to visit stations and a nearby system ruled by anarchy, cold nights and a very small population of runaways. The Quad however was a corporate monarchy that Dutch didn't give two shits about. She was much fascinated by the little red ship Big Joe jetted around in. It had no AI, but was clean enough, respectfully well lived in, and she liked how she fit very comfortably into the co-pilot's chair. It turned out Joe had been flying without a partner since Turin had met some girl on Leith. The girl had stuck around and had become someone special. Turin had moved up and Joe had moved on.

Leith was Dutch's favorite moon in the quad, lush with greenery and a native community that was proud of their farming, even as workers came over from a less delightful moon. Westerly was smoggy, dusty, hot and painful, but it was the most accessible without a warrant. Plus, Joe knew everything including Westhole like the back of his hand. She never even got to see the finaly moon of that system: Arkyn. It was a toxic dump only to be seen from afar.

The crown jewel of that small system was Qresh, and though it had pleasant weather, it was Dutch's least favorite place to go. It reminded her of the Empress's home world, and so many simple things could trigger a bad memory and have her on high alert.

He taught her how to track through the underbrush on Leith and the dust in the Badlands. She learned to start a fire and play in the dirt. He was nothing like Khlyen.

The first time they fought, she took him down and he only laughed.

"Serves me right. Let's go again." Joe gestured, and Dutch came at him, hoping to take him down quicker.

The second time was faster and meaner, but she kept getting hit as often as she landed hits. When he grabbed her from behind, she elbowed him in the face from and he twisted that hand behind her back. He pulled hard, but she didn't yield.

"Hey! Give up already!"

"Sorry." She grunted as he pushed her away from him. "I have a high threshhold for pain."

"You know what you did wrong?" he asked.

"Yeah." She dropped her hands to her knees and panted to catch her breath.

"You kicked your elbow up too high when you went for my face. You do everything technically perfect, but then a mistake like that: it'll get you shanked. Also, you were too loose on the right, and your footwork is pretty but impractical. You don't mix it up enough. You take too long to switch styles." He huffed and patted his chest. "But man, you really make me remember myself! You can take a meat and potatoes guy easy, but if he's got training and, more importantly, experience, you won't win."

She nodded. "I'll do better next time."

"Sure you will, kiddo." He smiled jovially. "Wanna go catch something for dinner?"

She woke early the next morning to drill her mistakes and Joe caught the last fifteen minutes of that while the sun rose.

"Ready to go again?" she asked.

He shrugged and motioned for her to come at him. She did.

She exploded with ferocity, but lack of sleep cost her. Her new mistakes were in the same vein as her old ones, and she fell into her place at the cooking fire with disappointment.

Big Joe laughed. "Wipe that frown off your face, we weren't all born masters."

She woke even earlier the next morning.

But no matter how much Dutch drilled, she slept too little and old anxiety wound her tightly. She remembered the summer before she'd left the harem, when she'd thought she'd finally become a perfect weapon. She'd made tenuous peace with the gods about death, resigned herself to the three lakes of hellfire that awaited monsters, and taken Khlyen's teachings as gospel. There was nothing more to her life. There was no other life outside the harem for her. She'd hit a wall in her training, however, and Khlyen became frustrated with her mistakes. She made the same mistakes over and over again. He kept her up for days, drilled the positions until she was sore. She'd trusted him to build her up, and knew he was breaking her down.

She fought the undoing until she was allowed a few hours of sleep under the stars, awakening black and blue in the new day. Khlyen had left her, and the gardens were silent as mist still hid the paths from silk-shod feet. She began again, on her own, and her muscles resisted her, but she knew that the pain was not always there to help. It could also deceive her, as it had in the past.

In the gray dawn, she'd finally embraced Khlyen's lessons with her whole heart, and bent her body to her will. She pushed past the wall and danced the fight without hesitation. She stood still at the end, unsure if she'd done it correctly, coiling her body up, readying herself to do it again, when Khlyen had placed a hand on her shoulder and released her.

"You've done it, Yala. Don't forget this," he had said.

He managed to sneak her into the Queen-consort's bath that morning. She undressed herself, heeding the signal Khlyen would give from outside, but barely enjoying the solitary moment. As she meditated in the water she knew she'd found something new inside herself: the ability to transcend her pain and her physical restraints. But that had also been the morning she'd seen herself from above, in a way that no drug ever could let you see yourself, and knew that she was no more than a prisoner and no less than an object of destruction. She was no longer a person. She was no longer tethered to her body, to her life, to any of this, and she could see what she had left behind: worthless, shattered pieces of lives.

She wanted that clarity, and chased it the same way she had before. But she was sleeping too much.

Joe noticed the toll this took on her and came up with his own plan for clarity, though he didn't know what was what she was after. When they came out of the Leithian forest after going through the deepest groves for two weeks without laying eyes on another soul, he immediately went to a tavern with her. He goaded her into playing drinking games until she collapsed and he bought her a clean bed to sleep in, while he slept on a chair in the hallway. The next morning she woke with a hangover, a big one, but after a packet of reducer had fizzled in her cup and she'd gulped it down, she realized she hadn't felt so well rested in months. The opposite direction of where she wanted to be, but Joe was already egging her onto the next thing.

They stopped for water on their way back to his ship, and she was startled by the pack he dropped to the ground at his feet. He rolled his shoulders and cracked his knuckles.

"Ready to go?"

She groaned. "I haven't drilled today though."

"Good," he said, grinning, and lunged at her, tackling her.

She got her feet under her quickly, and pushed back, using his weight against him, even as he forced her to contort in impossible ways. They scuffled longer than they ever had before. She thought she had him for a second, sneaking a dull blade against his throat, but he tickled her and she spasmed.

"That was unfair!"

He had that stupid grin on his face again. "Never let anything be out of question in a fight. If you know your partner's weakness, use it against them. That said, maybe you should wear something where your diaphragm is thickly covered, yeah?" He sighed happily. "Well, I think you learned something today!"

"My right side is still loose," she bemoaned. "I still drop my right shoulder."

"Yes. But what else?"

She shrugged, feeling too defeated to think about much else.

"A good night's sleep is worth more than all the drilling you can squeeze in. Fight to keep fit and not forget the muscle memory. But never give up sleep. Especially as long as you have. You must've had quite some past. You needed that more than anybody else I ever flew with."

"I needed to get out of my head," Dutch said.

Joe nodded, kneeling beside his pack and quiet for a long moment. "Whatever you're outrunning, you can get away from it. It isn't holding you down anymore. You'll see."

Dutch didn't say anything and they trudged their way out of the Quad again to get a look at some new planets.

* * *

When the eight weeks were up Dutch had learned how to laugh without feeling guilty, picked up enough slang to make her age seem irrelevant and knew that if she ever called, Big Joe would have her back.

Their last night on Westerly, she fell into bed with a monk named Alvis who was a bit too keen on getting to know her, and Big Joe bought his way with a sexer in the back of a joint called the Royale. As she lay beside the man she barely knew, but seemed to see right through her, she was grateful and hoped that John hadn't given up on his training. She had precious few friends in the universe. The ones she'd made weren't easy to come by. She wanted to see John again.

She stroked the scarred back of the man beside her. "What cruel god lets you do this to yourself?" she asked, waking him.

He stared at her a moment, waking up, but seeming to think deeply about it. "We suffer for the sins of others, so they may be redeemed."

"There's enough suffering in this world without you laying platitudes at the feet of the masses," she said and sat up in bed, sheet falling away.

"It isn't empty if you believe." He traced a scar on the taupe curve of her thigh. "The people in this system don't get a lot. The need to know the Trees are protecting them the same as anybody."

"Protecting them from the cruelty of—" she bit off her words and glanced at him self-consciously.

The way Alvis watched her was unnerving. He smiled so slightly, yet it was enigmatic merely because it was a rare treat.

"The oppressors will get what is coming to them. In this world."

"If not the next," she finished.

"I didn't say that," he whispered.

She shuddered, feeling the void call to her and began to put her undergarments on. "If you're about to fill me up with mumbo jumbo, save it. I'm happily a free agent now. You can stuff your martyrdom back in your pants and get yourself out of here."

He got dressed and left without a word, but even alone in the room, Dutch felt flustered. The thin rope that tied her to her body was taut and she was sure she could still snap it if she wanted. She hoped all the monks of this system weren't like him, in case she ever came back.

Back on the R.A.C. station, Big Joe insisted on walking Dutch to her ship. He took one look at Lucy and just about lost his cool.

"You've been riding around in my crap boat, while you let this lady gather dust? What the hells is wrong with you?"

She didn't dare admit to him she couldn't fly it without Johnny.

* * *

When Johnny got into the hanger and went to take his place on the shuttle, he was startled as someone called his name: "Jaqobis!" The voice echoed in the wide space, but he turned and saw a woman in the dark fitted uniform of a killjoy. Dutch dropped her hands from her mouth and grinned as he made his way to her, bag slung over his shoulder. She wasn't actually wearing black or gray like so many of the killjoys he'd seen so far, but a deep blue, like the last glimmer of atmosphere before you left orbit.

"You came back for me," Johnny said, a little amazed, and sounding pathetic, he was sure.

She shrugged. "I left my ship here."

"Oh, is that how we're gonna play it?" He asked, but was still smiling.

"Yeah, I also left my co-pilot here." She went to punch him lightly in the shoulder, but he surprised her by turning it into a hug. She didn't let it last long, but she had a feeling it wouldn't be the last time he'd try. And perhaps one day she'd loosen up enough to hug him back. _Fat chance_.

"I have a good feeling about this," Johnny said as they walked to Lucy's spot.

"What, about everything?" She looked at him bemused.

"Yeah."

She shook her head. They climbed up, punched in the undocking code and queued up for launch.

Finally she said: "I do, too."


	10. Physician Heal Thyself

Ten years ago…

"Murderer," they whispered.

"Traitor's daughter," they growled.

"It is because of your father that so many people died," they hissed.

For a long time Yalena of Yardeen did not understand why she was so hated. She'd come to the harem with high hopes that her mother had built up after her father had gone missing. She had wanted for nothing before… before her father left on frequent tense meetings, spoke a language Yalena didn't understand, argued with ministers and advisors in the downstairs rooms. He'd left with a pale smile one morning, and everything had changed. Overnight, the milk went sour. Beloved things in the house were taken, and she and her mother no longer lived in the big rooms. Her new room had been in the east tower, which she knew had fantastic views of the rose gardens, but she had no windows to look out of in the basement.

For a couple weeks, every other day she had snuck into the aviary where her birds were now roosting and stroked their feathers while they sat and cooed. Then her pets had flown away and her mother told her she would be moving to another planet. _Yardeen will always be your home_ , her mother had said _, but you will live in the Empress's house now_.

She had not expected such a beautiful place to be so cruel.

She made no friends, not really. There were only people who were kind to her, as she tried to be nice, harboring no ill will towards anyone. Khlyen was as close to a friend as she had, he was her guardian, her angel who brushed away all worries and fears, and she strove to please him as she had pleased her father with her music and her birds. Khlyen wanted knives and fists, but it really was no different. She had always been intended as a weapon.

When Cilla the ivory girl with golden hair— really the prettiest of all the younger girls in the harem, even if she was common— learned something about Yardeen in her history lesson, she took it upon herself to tell Yalena why she had been abandoned in the Harem.

"Your father let his people be massacred. He lead his people to their death." Cilla stood with her arms crossed on her flat chest, wearing a long violet gown which showed off the delicate skin of her neck and arms. She had her two friends beside her, girls who were of a higher social rank, just above Yalena's, but lacking all of Cilla's charisma.

"There was no war," Yalena said in confusion. "He didn't lead his people to die."

"He surrendered to the Empress without telling them. When the Empire arrived to accept Yardeen into their imperium, they treated it as an invasion and were wiped out." She sneered at Dutch. "So many people were killed they said that every third child became an orphan."

Khlyen had given her strict orders: never use anything she learned from him on anyone he had not asked her to kill. But still she squeezed her fists tightly and imagined beating the shit out of Cilla— smug, beautiful Cilla who was always the favorite of the Harem tutors and guards. Cilla was indulged where Yalena was not, no matter how hard she worked or how nice she was. Resentment burst out of her, Yardeen and her old life were gone.

"You're a liar!" she shouted.

"No, I'm not. Ask anybody."

Gods, she looked so pleased with herself. Cilla would do anything to take the star pupil down a peg.

Yalena then turned to a guard whose name she knew at the time but would forever after be unable to recall.

"Is it true?" Yalena's voice was hoarse.

The guard had been standing there the entire time, but it took her a moment to reflect on what she'd heard before she answered. The pine-green-swathed guardswomen frequently tuned out the innocuous conversations of the children and young ladies who were not yet marriageable. Unless there was a threat, or there was something to spy for, there was no point.

"Yes," was all she said.

To Yalena it felt like her world had collapsed. Any further jabs delivered by Cilla and her cronies fell upon deaf ears, and Yalena found herself kneeling on the carpet, stirred to life only by the changing of the guard some time later. The apothecary's girl came to her then, it must have been an hour or so later, as the sun had moved but little, chasing the shadows only a fraction across the room.

"So they told you," she said.

Yalena nodded.

"Would you like something for the pain?"

Yalena hadn't even known what to call the hollowness that become a gaping maw inside her, but her lips began to wobble, and tears fled her eyes. She nodded again.

The apothecary's girl crawled with her into a curtained nook. She opened her palm to display a small box, dainty and gilt. Not the most precious thing Dutch had seen, but certainly having a prettiness that appealed to her. She was told to open her mouth, which she did, and a small pinch of something was placed under her tongue. They embraced one another in their sorry lot, lying side by side, staying in the cozy hiding place until the moons had risen and the stars were whispering their night music, then they crawled out and snuck into the Spring Garden. It had been a few weeks since Yalena had been out here, but it was even more beautiful than she remembered. With the spirits flowing in her veins, she heard the voices of every star, and every rock orbiting each of them. The solar winds that buffeted the planets were like string instruments, the rotations and revolutions were like solemn clarinets. She cried— it was so beautiful— and it consumed her.

When Khlyen next saw her for their lesson, he found she hadn't been to a single class with her tutors, and had not practiced a single maneuver he'd taught her. It took him two more visits to realize what had happened her, and took her the rest of the year to cure her of her addiction.

* * *

In the present…

"Holy shit!"

D'avin woke to find Johnny's looking down on him, mouth dropped open and standing stock-still. Footsteps came running down the hall, and Dutch entered the room breathless.

"By the trees, D'avin," Johnny said more softly. "You came back?"

There was no answer D'avin could give, he felt, that would be sufficient. _Of course_ , he might have said, but the ability to speak seemed to have left him. His brother hugged him, which once would have been unthinkable, and D'avin cried, which he would have thought he was no longer capable of.

Dutch sat on the bed beside them and gently stroked D'avin's back. She was still gorgeous, battle-scars and all. She didn't move to hug him however, and it stung a little, but smelling her again he remembered the fight for her life, and what had preceded it. So when she only offered her hand, he accepted that this was all he would get.

He also believed this was all he deserved.

"Where were you?" Dutch asked. "Were you on Arkyn? It's the only bloody place we didn't look in this damn system."

"Does it matter?" D'avin wanted to know. "I'm here now."

Johnny and Dutch exchanged a look.

"How did you escape?" Johnny asked.

"D'avin, did they let you go?" Dutch asked, a bit more forcefully.

The silence in the room stretched for a long time before he spoke.

"Yes," D'avin said. He looked away to avoid seeing their disappointment.

* * *

" _Excuse me, did you hear what I said?_ " Najik's voice vibrated against the metal surface of the table as Dr. Reed removed her comm-piece and laid it down.

Dr. Reed sighed. She was a patient person. She was odd, and she knew it, but she could take most of the shit dished at her by assistants and gofers whose bosses' power had gotten to their heads. Soldiers came and went, but she belonged to Red 17. She'd inherited this project and made it her own. When things came to a head, she knew where she belonged, she knew where she was going. So Dr. Reed was patient. But Najik had trademarked a particular brand of vexation and Dr. Reed needed a break.

" _Dr. Reed!_ " This was Khlyen on the comm now, so she quickly picked the piece up and pulled back thick, black hair to stick it back in her ear.

"Yes, here." She was only breathless because she did not want to lose this job. Najik was nothing, but Khlyen made himself powerful.

" _We have a situation, can you access an operative in the field and assess him?_ "

"Of course." She got up quickly to turn on the visual communication feed and immediately recognized the man staring into his handheld device.

"Mr. Lee!" She smiled brightly. "I hear you're not doing well?"

In fact, Mr. Lee looked too pale, his skin was moist from sweat, and his eyes were a little red.

"I'm having trouble with the… the…"

Quickly, Dr. Reed checked the stats from his neuroradiotransmitters and frowned. His brain was reading at a higher temperature than it should be, though it was only a fraction of a degree, but he had metal in there that conducted heat well, making him sensitive to even the slightest change. He had a fever and more than that, his neurons were cooking in his skull.

"Mr. Lee, how are you sleeping?" Dr. Reed looked back to the video feed. "Mr. Lee, what happened?"

"I'm having nightmares." Mr. Lee licked his lips and his eyes looked franticly at things the camera could not see. "I'm having trouble ignoring things when I need to doze off, so I toss and turn, but I don't get tired. I get sucked into the conversation my downstairs neighbor is having with her hokk bottles."

"What happened when you tried to link up? Was there a problem?"

"I live above a sexer," Mr. Lee continued, not answering her question. "They don't call them that on Qresh, but they exist. They're just as noisy here, too."

He really didn't look good, but Dr. Reed was not only patient, she had good bedside manner, so she didn't let her panic show on her face. His avoidance had less to do with her and more to do with the malfunctioning hardware.

"Mr. Lee, do you want to come in for a check-up?" She asked.

"Huh?" It took a while for him to refocus.

"I'm concerned about you, Mr. Lee. I'd like you to come back to the base and get a full evaluation, and do a de-brief at that time."

He closed his eyes, the heaviness of his situatio weighing on his brow, but he nodded his head with a sigh.

"Okay." She loaded up her data pad and began protocols to retrieve Mr. Lee without betraying their situation. "You will rendezvous as laid out in the retrieval plans." Selecting somethig else with her index finger, she doubled tapped and looked to Mr. Lee expectantly. He nodded again and she knew he'd recieved the info.

"See you soon," she said.

"Thanks, doc." He sounded relieved.

* * *

The air was always cool in the lab in which Dr. Reed worked. Khlyen didn't mind the cold these days, but he was aware of it, and when Najik followed him in, she shivered a minute and a half into their meeting. He didn't offer his jacket because she wouldn't accept it and because that wasn't their relationship. She crossed her arms and did her best not to shiver again.

Dr. Reed was taking her time examining the Rack agent they called 'Fancy' Lee. He was dozing off, but constantly waking back up in that way that he once had to learn how to shut off. Fancy wasn't that kind of man. He sat with his proverbial back to the wall, no one snuck up on him. Except this time they had, and he'd been too stubborn to see it coming.

"Mr. Lee." Dr. Reed placed a hand on Fancy's in a comforting gesture. "You need to sleep. I can override your sensitivity to the enhancements for a while, to dull the noise, but you'll need to learn to control it yourself. If you can't 'turn it off' you'll risk serious brain damage."

On some level it bothered Khlyen how familiar Dr. Reed was with the agents who came through Red 17. She knew all of them by name and took each loss personally. True, she had also coached Khlyen though his own prototypical adaptation, he knew how those healing hands were a balm to sooth the darkness, but he saw the risk that posed. She wasn't like any of her subjects, she'd never know how dangerous her humanity was. Khlyen was also thankful there was someone who at least appeared maternal to the recruits, her position was more like a zookeeper who loved her job, though.

"But first, we need to debrief." Khlyen stepped forward, and Najik followed a pace behind.

Fancy's usual swagger was easily picked up again, he shook his head ruefully, turning away to then present them with a mocking smile. "Of course, how could I forget." He began to get dressed again— he did dress very well, Khlyen had to give him that.

"We can do it with a wire override if you prefer." Najik hastily got out the contraption she'd plucked from Khlyen's desk before they left his office. It was useless, but Fancy didn't know that. He blanched, which was her intended effect.

"No, I'll tell you what I saw on Leith."

Dr. Reed withdrew with her data pad, though she was still within earshot.

"True Leithians are riding on the high of the Company's attack, they want to strike while they think Qresh is weak. But not all agree, they think that the Company will be expecting retaliation."

Najik sighed roughly, exasperated and glared at Khlyen a bit too openly.

"Well, I could have told you that."

He'd have to punish her later.

"Go on, Fancy." Khlyen said.

"Leithians don't want Westerlyns moving onto their moon, but many are sympathetic. Who knows what aid they might be willing to send…" He trailed off.

"Any rumors?" Khlyen asked.

"Worries." Fancy shrugged his vest on over his shirt, but before buttoning it thought better and took it off again. Saying, as if to himself, "No, I'll be sleeping here tonight."

"Fancy. You said there were worries?"

"Worries that the next retaliation will be against the Leithians who always supported the rebellion of the moons." Fancy sat down a little wearily. "There is a worry that Leith will spill blood soon. No one there wants that."

Khlyen exchanged a look with Najik.

"That'll do, Fancy. Thank you. We'll let you rest now."

Fancy nodded and turned back to Dr. Reed who directed him to a cot behind a screen. She let him sit before checking his scalp, and Khlyen and Najik turned away.

"What do you suspect?"

"No one knows enough to be a problem."

She still looked worried however.

"Don't you start. I'll keep the pawns in play. We just need to keep an eye on our Queen."

"And the King?"

"On the way." Khlyen smiled.

* * *

"What does it mean that Khlyen let him go?" Johnny whispered.

D'avin was standing on the other-side of the wall. He had cleared his mind of all errant thought, pushing the machine noises away and could even hear the creak of the floor beneath their feet as they paced, talking about him.

"How am I supposed to know?" Dutch hissed.

"Because you were his pupil for the better part of two decades."

D'avin himself wasn't sure what to make of his resurrection. He'd noticed how different he felt now, though it was harder to compare with each day that passed. He still found the same jokes funny, still burped the same way after a meal, but it was like he got a split second extra time to consider if he wanted to laugh or burp. He could focus, take in more and truly understand the small signals that he encountered everyday in a way that was innate. He felt thoroughly 'other'.

He had to make a conscious effort to stop eavesdropping and went to the lounge for a drink.

Alvis was sitting on the couch, the sleeping child's head on his lap. He looked up when he heard the door.

"I need to get going soon," Alvis said, unprompted. Yet this, too, D'avin understood: Alvis was unneeded here, had a revolution to attend to. "Just waiting for Fi to wake up," Alvis said.

D'avin nodded because he felt he was supposed to. The child in his lap was obviously 'Fi'.

"You ever feel like you're not in control?" D'avin asked.

Alvis' head snapped up. "What, like fate?"

"No, like…" but he didn't finish the thought. He wasn't sure he wanted to voice his misgivings and worries.

Fi woke soon after. After Alvis had given her a glass of juice, he went to say bye to the others. Fi drank mutely and gave D'avin an uncanny stare she'd probably learned from the monk. When Alvis returned he smelled more strongly of Johnny and D'avin saw he was wearing borrowed clothes, and didn't look at D'avin for more than a second. "Good luck," was all he said.

* * *

After D'avin had settled down in bed that night and the ship was quiet, Johnny came to Dutch's room and knocked very softly on the door. He didn't announce himself, but she let him in. Who else could it be?

She met his eyes but didn't say anything, ghosts still haunted her in those dark brown eyes.

"Dutch," he said, the door slipping shut behind him.

She looked away, and he was compelled to come close. He felt the familiarity in this, the want and need to comfort his friend. It was a brittle feeling.

"I'm going to help the Westerlyns get their freedom."

"How?"

He shrugged his shoulders and huffed a little sigh. "I believe in Alvis. They trust him, I can't help but trust him, too."

She smiled, a shadow of herself again. "He's a good man, Johnny. I guess you found that out eventually."

He was not surprised, but embarrassed by the slight blush that snuck up then. It had taken him a long time for him to realize something important about Alvis, and she'd let him take his time. She had his back despite all. Even if she'd been an asshole recently.

"What about you?" He asked.

There she looked away again, this time to her crossed legs on the soft blue cotton-weave blanket. He sat down and covered her fidgeting fingers with her own.

"Who can we ask?"

She didn't look at him, and it was a little foreign to him to be so brash, but he gently coaxed her chin up with his hand, her eyes were lidded, and slow to look up.

"Are we okay, Johnny?"

"Of course," he said without hesitation. But his ribs ached, bruises itched where they were still fresh. He knew she felt the same, but… "I'll always have your back, you beserker."

She smiled, and pushed his hands away.

"I need to know why. I can't let him go again, not after what he did to D'avin." Her stare was unflinching. "I need to know why he chose me."

Johnny nodded and was all in. "Of course."

* * *

And the days pass…

The first and only time Pawter had been in withdrawal was during the last black rain storm, and she'd gone onto some shitty quality Jakk. Her final dose as a free woman was divine. Now she was on an increasingly meager dose, and frequently irritable. She couldn't complain, really. Though the first controlled dose had been like an insult in its potency, teasing her with not enough sensation and enough aching to make her feel on the brink of death and nothing more, she survived, and she didn't go into shock. Yet everything felt paler and insubstantial and cold. She'd become numb without the drug.

That morning, however, she was sitting in the sun with Yardeeni poetry, an ancient book from a planet she would never visit, waiting for the day's pain to creep up on her. She hadn't been this warm in years, it seemed. She wasn't reading, only glancing at a line now and then, not pushing herself to remember languages she'd once learned while she'd been a Seyah's daughter. It felt like a lifetime ago that she'd lived on this planet, naturally inclined toward a life of luxury, breaking out to study hard in medical school. Still, everything had been more beautiful back then. The last few years of her life were like a fever dream.

When she began to shiver she sighed, laid the book on the spindle table with lace cloth and daisies on it, and pulled the bell cord that would summon a nurse. When the shiver turned into a tremor she laid herself down on her freshly made bed and tried to memorize the room with its plush caramel carpeting, pale blue walls like the sky, and white, cushioned furniture. She gripped the blankets on either side and bit her lip, easily breaking the scab from yesterday's seizure, and blood began to dribble on her chin, into her mouth, and she stared at the contours of the molded ceiling, wanting to focus on the design. _Did it repeat?_ she asked herself. But she could never hold onto it long enough to answer. The nurse had appeared at her side, was tying her fresh, clean curls back, brushing back sweaty hair, and placing a light piece of wood between her teeth as she began to slip away.

Pawter knew what could fix this, and she also knew that if she went cold turkey immediately she would be clean faster, but there was a risk of brain trauma or even worse. Her family could afford to have someone babysit her while she thrashed in a bed, chilled and delirious, and make sure she didn't shatter her teeth or die. Suffering was all she had for a few hours.

The nurse stayed and soothed her, reminding Pawter of the nanny she'd had as a child. When that memory came to her, she knew she'd passed most of the agony. She took the wood out of her mouth herself, tasting the dry metal of blood on her lips and panting the last of the pain out.

"Are you hungry?" the nurse asked. "There's a tuber soup for lunch today."


	11. Past Hurts

And the days pass…

"S'Funny how you become used to the free-pass a warrant gives you. The amount of procedure we have to go through just to see her is annoying." Johnny stood in front of the long mirror in Dutch's room, frowning at the white button-down he'd put on. "Is it supposed to look like this?"

"Honey, if you mean 'finer than the husband of a Seyah,' then yes." Pree smiled approvingly from a step behind him. He only looked scruffy because he'd been growing his old beard back. "Who knew you clean up so nicely."

"Thanks," Johnny said. But his eyebrows were still knitted together, he wasn't convinced. "Do I wear a vest on top of this, or—"

"I think this will fit." Seemingly out of nowhere, Pree presented a maroon silk and gold embroidered waistcoat.

"Oh, Pree. This is—" Johnny stroked his hand over the fine threads, giving a half-smile. "Is this from your wedding?"

"Traded it for two pints of moonshine with one of my groomsmen who survived the ceremony." He said, then made a dismissive gesture with the wave of his hand. "And the bombing."

"This wasn't yours? This is your color though."

"I burned everything when Juno and I split up." Pree handed it to him. At the moment he was wearing a chunky woven gray top and slate pants. Very nondescript, easy to clean. "Go on. Put it on."

It fit very well, especially when Pree tightened the back of it and the shape of it hugged his torso. Johnny frowned a little. _It did look good._

"Ooh, does Alvis know?" Dutch had come in without him hearing the door open. Clearly he needed to snap out of it.

"Stop, would you." Johnny angrily fussed with the buttons on his sleeves and ignored Pree's overly curious gaze.

"What about Alvis?" His eyebrows were raised, and a smile played on his lips.

"He only left a short while ago," Dutch said scandalously. "Since they began their torrid affair they can't keep their hands off one another." She tilted her head down so her smile was more raunchy. Waggling her eyebrows turned the whole show into a joke.

Pree gasped, his hand up to his mouth. "How tragic! He had to leave to attend to his revolution, meanwhile the killjoys must play politics." He dropped the act and smiled a little. "Well I'm glad somebody around here is getting some. I just wasn't expecting anyone to take _you_ to church, Jaqobis."

Johnny shrugged. "Hey, so, you think we'd just have to ask Seyah Simms to see her daughter, right?" he asked, deliberately changing the subject.

Dutch motioned for him to follow her, and they went to the bridge. "I think we're in a bit of a bind with her. She's publicly pleased we returned her daughter, despite there being no active warrant, but privately I'm sure she's very cross."

"Based on the way she spoke to me, I thought the Simms family disowned Pawter." Johnny sat down beside Dutch.

"Disappointed, at least," Pree added.

"Well, hopefully we'll get a chance to see what our next move is." Dutch nodded and gave Johnny a serious look. "We owe her the offer of a prison break if she wants it. At the very least."

"Yeah. It might trigger a warrant though. We can't protect her from everyone."

Dutch nodded and they settled in for descent.

Dutch had her Qreshi outfit on again, but her hair was lightly bound in a bun at the nape of her neck, whereas last time it had been tied back more simply. She was trying for a good impression. They'd never been to the prison on Qresh before— they'd never had a reason to.

D'avin entered from the ship and the room fell silent.

They docked without incident.

* * *

Security wasn't high, but their entrance to the prison followed a ritualized nature. The foursome was buzzed through several doors, passed on from guard to guard, but in fact the entire complex looked more like a castle that had missed its last renovation than a prison. The gardens outside were curated, and there were glass ceilings that provided ample exit for those who would dare an escape. As they walked Johnny created half-a-dozen plans that could easily get Pawter out— if she wanted to go.

At last they were led into a cafeteria like room. Some other inmates were sitting at tables, as richly dressed as their visitors. They certainly all looked healthy and unworried by their incarceration.

On the other hand, Pawter looked like she was in prison. When she emerged through swinging doors she was wearing a simple white shirt and comfy striped pants. Her robe was the most costly thing, soft looking but without the shininess that so many pricey garments had. Her face was worn, sickly pale, with dark circles under her eyes. But her smile came easily, and her hair was freshly washed, she smelled of Qreshi citrus fruits.

"Hello," she said, her voice a little husky.

They all got up at once to hug her. It was easier as group, and Johnny hoped Pawter ignored the looks they were getting from the more formal people.

"It's nice to see some friendly faces. I'm beginning to think the only nice people left in this system work on the nursing staff here."

"Darling, are they treating you all right?" Pree took her hand as they sat down.

"Yes, it's okay. They're firm with me, but—" She shrugged.

"How's your, you know." Johnny's voice was hushed.

"It's good to see you," D'avin said, smiling.

"Did they give you a fair trial?" Dutch asked.

Pawter looked at her squarely as she answered. "Yes. For manslaughter of a Qreshi royal I am to serve out the rest of my cleansing, then am barred from ever practicing medicine wherever the Company has reach. Thanks for asking." She smiled at D'avin like it was nothing, and took one of Johnny's hands as well. "It's good to see you, too. I'm doing well. And Johnny, don't you look especially fine." She grinned at him.

"What does that mean, your cleansing?" D'avin asked.

"Until I'm sober. They do a special program to get people sober safely, but it isn't quick. It also hurts. A lot."

Pree squeezed her hand sympathetically.

"Do you want us to bust you out?" Johnny leaned in to speak very low.

Pawter laughed, a bright sound that rang like a bell. Disarmingly pretty, like she was.

"Guys, I'm not in a prison. I'm in the best rehab program money can buy." She looked tired, but the weight that had been holding her down so long had been lifted. "I'll be free forever soon enough. Just let me do it right, okay?"

* * *

Dutch split after they'd visited Pawter in her 'rehab'. She took a long walk around Medidas, stopping at the bar she'd gotten so drunk at. They weren't even open yet and the burly man sweeping the floor shook his finger at her when he recognized her. She waved jovially, like it was nothing, and moved on. She walked in the opposite direction of Hector Feraanz and the station, knowing better than to proposition an officer while on duty. She went to the only other place she knew.

"If you're here to talk about the sentence, there's nothing I can do. The vote was unanimous." Delle Seyah sat at a dressing table in a scrumptious purple robe, and was taking her earrings out. Nearby a disinterested young woman stared out the window at the pale blue afternoon. "It's not as though the prisons for Qreshi are _anything_ like they are for Westerlans." She smiled wickedly at Dutch over the mirror she was sitting in front of. "She's probably back home, in her old room, everything as it should be."

Dutch still hadn't said anything, so Delle Seyah stood with a heavy sigh. "Look. If you're here to maim me or something, don't bother." She jerked her head at the star-gazing woman. "Patci will have your head before I've even chipped a nail."

"I've not come here to hurt you," Dutch said.

"What then?" Delle Seyah cocked a pose, resting one hand on her hip, crumpling the fabric of her delicate dressing gown without a second thought.

Dutch stepped forward so abruptly, grabbing the Seyah's collar roughly, that the girl at the window was startled into action and had a gun out and on Dutch in a flash.

"To do this," Dutch said, before pulling her close and crushing their mouths together. With a lazy flick of Delle Seyah's hand, Patci turned away.

The robe slipped down, revealing periwinkle lingerie beneath a flawless decolletage. The Seyah's mouth was on Dutch's collarbone, and her fingers tugging the blouse out of Dutch's pants. It soon hit the floor. She lowered her mouth further, nipping gently at the skin of Dutch's breasts.

"Seyah!" she gasped.

"Oh, please. Would you just call me Delle already?" She recaptured her mouth, and for a second Delle fumbled with Dutch's hair, finally find the pin in it, letting it tumble down.

Dutch pulled back and shook her hair, eyes catching on Delle's swollen lips and lingering on flushed skin.

"I knew I liked you," Delle said, tracing Dutch's jawline to the mouth that had to stay open to breathe.

Dutch opened the robe all the way and looked at Delle with heavy eyes. "Where to next, my lady?"

"Wherever you want, Yalena," Delle said and pulled her hand lower.

* * *

"Hey—" Johnny spoke into the comm. "Man." _Really? Man?_ he thought. He silent made a very angry gesture while the connection remained active. "Just wondering if you had a minute. I'm back on Westerly, wouldn't mind seeing you."

The comm beeped, signaling the message had been sent and the line went dead. Lucy engaged park without more than a word from John, and he trudged down the ramp into the hall, wondering what he was doing with himself, anyway.

"Hey." Pree emerged from the lounge and jerked his head back toward it. "Your brother's being a real killjoy. What happened to him? He's more intense than usual."

"We don't know." Johnny shrugged. "You coming with me?"

"Yeah," Pree said. "It was good to get away and see the doc, but real life has to pick up again, sometime."

"You joining the revolution?" Johnny asked. He crossed his arms and leaned comfortably against the wall.

"Ash would love it if I did, I've put in a word with a distant cousin in New City, when I hear back…" He sighed. "Oh, damn the trees. It would have been so much easier if those damn terrorists hadn't blown everything to bits. We were all eking by just fine."

"Wasn't much of a life," Johnny said quietly.

"We can't all make a living chasing tails." He smiled. "Double meaning intended."

Johnny thumped him on the back. "I'll walk back with you, just give me a sec."

He stuck his head into the lounge where D'avin was staring out ahead of him, but not quite spacing out, it was like he was seeing more than just air.

"Hey, D'av."

When D'avin turned to look at his brother, it wasn't as though he had just noticed him— it seemed to Johnny that there was very little that D'avin wasn't aware of in such close quarters. The unsettling feeling that every action didn't have an equal opposite reaction now was pervasive. Johnny wanted to pick up the connection he'd built back up with him, but it felt like his brother had been replaced. Was D'avin even his brother anymore? Maybe there was nothing left of the person he'd been?

Did it matter? They'd barely known each other for the better part of the last decade.

As though he could read Johnny's thoughts, D'avin cast down his eyes and stood, he was very careful to not let their gazes meet.

"I know things are weird right now, and I can't—" D'avin's voice choked. "I can't seem to find the words to tell you what happened."

When he looked up at Johnny, his eyes were ablaze. "I'm still the same guy, though. Just more aware."

"I know, D'av." Johnny groaned in exasperation. "I just don't know what to do with you now. I was gonna go check on—" he gulped, remembering his suspicions of who might be listening beyond this room. "I was gonna check on the people underground, and with all that's happened, your involvement with Red 17—" his voice began to rise— "your disappearance, I mean, you won't tell us what happened to you. We don't know what Khlyen wants with Dutch, what he's doing in the Rack."

"Can't," D'avin corrected, a strangled look on his face. "I can't tell you, something stops me."

Johnny wanted to tear his hair out. He threw a hand into the hair, like ' _exactly_ ' and huffed.

"I think it's better if you stay here. Guard the ship or whatever."

D'avin nodded, the slightest touch of sadness in his face. "I understand," he said.

Johnny wanted to storm out, but for better or for worse, he couldn't write his brother off so easily. Not even then, certainly not now.

"Okay," he took a step back out of the room. "See you soon. Keep your comm link open."

He tapped Pree on the shoulder as he passed him by, saying: "Let's go."

* * *

The sun was setting when Dutch awoke. Delle still slept beside her, and behind a silk partition Patci was silhouetted in a glow. The dusty rose light that covered Delle was beautiful and Dutch enjoyed being able to look at her unhindered, without having to worry about professional courtesy or ulterior motive.

She sighed, there always was an ulterior motive.

Delle made a little groaning noise, cute in a way, and stretched. She opened her eyes and looked immediately to Dutch. There was no regret, no fear in her piercing eyes. She pulled the sheets back up over her tawny body, hiding her russet nipples and turning onto her side to face Dutch.

"How did you sleep, Yala?" She traced a finger along Dutch's face.

"Well." It was a slippery slope into being distant from one-word answers.

Delle chuckled. "Back to business so soon?" She'd heard it, too. She dropped her hand to Dutch's neck, running her hand along the line of it, to her shoulder, onto her waist, dipping beneath the fabric to grip her butt and pull her close. "Didn't we have fun, killjoy?"

They kissed again, a taste of expertly oak-aged hokk on their tongues, and something else more tangy as well. Dutch liked the idea of going yet another round, but Delle kept her from pulling the sheet away from between them.

"No, first I'd like to know what this tryst is going to cost me."

"Excuse me?" Dutch hadn't realized that she'd come across as a sexer. "I'm not— I didn't—"

"Oh, hush." Delle sat up, still resolutely covering herself, and reaching for the crystal glass of water beside her on a table. "As much as fun as this has been, I know that I didn't seduce you. You came because you needed something." She laughed once. "Well, I've taken care of one thing at least."

Dutch scowled, sitting up as well, not liking the contrast the deep-gold sheets made against her brown skin. She'd have liked a color more like the one Delle had been wearing when she'd come in. The gold looked fabulous against Delle however. Dark hair rumpled in a way that was sexy because it said she'd just been fucking.

"Is it about Red 17?" Delle asked.

Dutch couldn't help her reaction, her eyes went wide and she gasped inaudibly, staring at Delle, who nodded, rushing her along with a gesture.

"I'm looking for the man who runs it. Khlyen is his name." The words were out before she'd thought long about them.

"Just Khlyen? No last name? Like you?" Delle smiled to herself. "What makes you think I could get in touch with him?"

"I realized that you two have your interests overlapping, but I'm not sure why, or even what they are." She frowned a little. "I just need to talk."

Delle sighed. "Okay," she said, but it was as good as a non-answer. She got up, letting the sheet fall half onto the floor. "Time to start the night."

* * *

Ashtur was just coming aboveground behind the old mine entrance when Johnny and Pree made it to the tunnel's mouth. She smiled when she saw them, and threw an easy arm around Pree, standing on tip-toe to kiss him on the cheek.

"Have fun on Qresh? How's doc?"

"Sober." Pree said, a laugh on his face, his eyebrows cocked. "Which I wish I wasn't."

Ashtur shook her head. When she looked at Johnny, her expression was more guarded, and she didn't meet his eye for long. "What about you? How you doing?"

"I'm fine. Dutch is taking care of some personal business, I was wondering if Alvis is around?"

Pree rolled his eyes. "Didn't you already leave him a message?"

"He's doing some thinking, logistics and the like, needed to take a walk to clear his head, you shouldn't probably—" She stopped speaking a moment, biting her lip and considering him. "You'll find him wandering the western market, probably, near Pree's place, near the execution rack." She reached into her pouch to get out the data pad, pull up the rough map they had been pouring over all morning.

"Let me get you coordinates, they won't be exact but—"

"No, I got it." Johnny pulled out a blue pair of glasses and smiled at her.

She wanted to smile back at him, but it was a slow reaction. There was some awkwardness between them that she couldn't easily remedy.

"How's Fi?" he asked.

"Good." She smiled easily. "She asked about you, wants to know when you two going on your next mission."

"That kid—" his smile was a little lopsided, annoyed as in a joking manner, very warm, and it was nice. Ashtur thought she'd have liked John more if she'd met him under different circumstances. "She complained the whole time we were out. She was a trooper though." He'd softened his voice, and when he looked at Ashtur, she saw something that she recognized from the mirror she used to look in every morning. "After we've taken the planet, then she's the first gal I look up. You can tell her that."

"I'll just say 'soon,'" Ashtur said.

 _We_ , she thought, and a chill ran up her spine. _Where did Alvis dug up this one? Was he for real?_

"Thanks," Johnny said.

And he left, walking lightly away.

* * *

Dutch dressed slowly, disliking the turn her carefree evening had taken. She would have happily stayed the night, even if it had been the one and only time. Delle seemed to be done with her, however. She may have had no regrets, but Dutch certainly hated that she'd fallen into the trap and asked for something. She tucked in her boots and stood, surprised by the attendant that waited for her at the bottom of the steps from the platform the bed rested on.

"If you're ready, dinner arrangements have been made, my lady." The slight woman made a bow and gestured to the door.

Dutch couldn't help the flutter in her chest. She slung the light jacket over her shoulder and entertained the smile that was on her lips. She knew better than to imagine what would happen after she sat down with Delle to eat, but she could freely imagine the sultry gown she might wear, the color of her bustier…

There was only a small table looking out over the sea, and while the table was set for two, Dutch was the first to arrive. The attendant deposited her and left again. The server pulled out her chair.

"Would you like something to drink, my lady?" he asked as she sat.

"Just water is fine," she said, a little subdued. She reasoned that the table would not be set for two if Delle was not joining her. So she took a piece of bread— still warm, freshly baked!— and drank water. She couldn't help but turn to look expectantly when the door opened. Her face went white and she almost choked on the bite she'd just taken when she saw who it was.

"Not expecting to see me so soon, I gather?" Khlyen sat and put his napkin on his lap, an amused twitch in his mouth. "Gabriel, I think we're ready to be served dinner." He reached out a hand to cover Dutch's and actually looked concerned. "Breathe, Yala. You're not choking, are you?"

She withdrew her hand and swallowed the bread down, but she didn't dare to take another bite.

"Normally I wouldn't be able to come so quickly, but I happened to be in the neighborhood," Khlyen said.

Gabriel served soup first.

"Come on, keep your strength up. It's partridge and mushroom cream. Fabulous! Seyah Kenndry's chef is one of the best in the Quad."

Dutch only had a few spoonfuls.

Then Gabriel served salad, which Dutch used as inspiration and stared coldly at Khlyen.

"What do you have to say for yourself."

Khlyen frowned while chewing. "Little bird, you'll give me indigestion if you interrogate me while we eat." He gestured with his fork. "So you might as well eat."

Next Gabriel served fish, something freshly caught. Then poultry which Dutch did try and rather enjoyed, and lastly Gabriel brought a grazing red meat which Dutch ate all of. She wiped her mouth and then tucked the sharp knife it came with into her napkin.

"Actually, I came to ask _you_ for something," Khlyen finally said when Gabriel served the fruit.

Dutch was all reaction, a coiled spring waited to be triggered, and the knife was at Khlyen's throat before he could take his next breath. Something hard pressed Dutch from behind.

"That's not necessary, Gabriel," Khlyen said, and the server removed the blaster from Dutch's back.

"We both know that's no good, little bird." He waited for her to remove the sharp edge, but she continued to stand, the knife hovering near but not touching him. He began to eat their last course. "What I was going to say was, I need you. Many people will get hurt. Take your time though, finish your dessert."

"Haven't I given you enough?" Dutch finally managed to gasp out the words. Her stomach was full, but the anxious energy that Khlyen bred within her made her feel empty. She had no choice but to sit.

"On the contrary, I gave you everything and you have yet to repay that." He thumped the table with a heavy finger as he spoke. She looked at him with fear, yet he returned her questioning gaze with one of real tenderness. "Yala, I care so much for you. I wouldn't push you if I didn't think you could do it."

She pulled her hand away when he reached for it.

"I understand that there may be a bridge we still need to build between us. So I arranged for a little token of good faith." He wiped his mouth, placed his napkin on the table and stood. "Your highness."

Dutch turned and was glad she was still sitting, unsure if her legs would have held. She first saw his eyes, those which always caught her even in a crowded room, dark without light reflecting in them, but so bright, like he saw her and through her and he enjoyed looking at all she was. He was still the most beautiful man she'd ever seen with unforgettable topaz skin and soft black hair, and he rolled in on a wheelchair.

"I'm sure you remember Prince Kohli," Khlyen said.


	12. Holy Hawk

Six years ago…

"I'm so glad you two will finally meet." Yalena tucked her hand into Kohli's elbow, glad to have him against her as a light breeze blew in from the sea. The long shawl that had been wrapped and draped over her for the wedding was pure white to reflect the starlight that had shone on the ceremony, and even the Empress herself had complimented the craftsmanship, but it wasn't very warm even with the blouse and petticoat that went under it. Dutch felt the lightest she had ever in her twenty years of life and knew that if she were to die tomorrow she could not regret anything. Her third eye was wide open and she was at peace, her husband and prince by her side.

"Just a short visit," Kohli pouted. "It's been too long since we were alone together."

"I know. Patience, love." They walked the stepping stones along the cliff shore, and she felt the skipping of her heart like she was walking the ceremonial path again. She tucked herself in closer and they caught the warm glow of the cabin ahead, it's paper walls were only for a summer residence, not doing much more than protecting the inhabitant from light sea winds.

A small native woman with grey hair tried using the handful of words she knew of Kohli's language to welcome them. They did not disrespect her by assuming she wanted to speak anything else, nodding gratefully and following her within. They removed their slippers at the door and were shown to a straw mat room with a small fire in a pit, a pot of tea roasting on indirect heat.

"One moment," she said, smiling and then retreating whilst bowing.

Kohli helped Yalena sit in her stiff fabric and she reached her hands out to the fire. He paced a little, looking at the artwork of distant worlds painted on the paper walls, and she watched him. She enjoyed seeing everything he did, a year together still felt like not enough, and she looked forward to spending the rest of her life with him, relished each decade she dreamed together with him, ruling his world, side by side. He also wore white, though less ornate. It was perhaps the simplest thing he would ever wear. She smiled and felt a tear of happiness prickle her nose. She had to sniff it away. He clasped his hands behind his back and turned to her, idle confusion and concern on his face.

"What is it Yalena?" he asked.

"I never thought I'd be so happy."

He grinned in return holding out his hands to her even as she remained seated, his smile the only thing that remained of a carefree youth. It was a whole world in that bright smile, crinkling his bronzed face and happiness etched into the corner of his eyes. "I'm so glad we get this. A life of service ahead of us, at least we'll have each other."

"Ahem."

They turned to look at the man who had stepped into the room, his navy blue suit not unlike Kohli's in style. Dutch made a motion to stand.

"Please, don't get up. I'm sorry I missed the ceremony," Khlyen said, smiling mildly. "I've only just returned from Korrel. How did it go?"

"Without a hitch." Dutch giggled, and Khlyen frowned a little. "Well, aside from the obvious one."

"I'm sorry, your highness." Khlyen snapped to attention. "Can I have Gona get you anything?"

"No need, sir, I was just waiting. I did not want to insult my gracious host." Kohli gave a slight bow, as befitting their situation.

Khlyen returned the bow more deeply. "Of course, I am most appreciative. Please, have a seat."

Surrounded by her oldest friend and her new partner for life, Dutch finally felt herself warmed by the fire and the burbling pot of fragrant tea. Cups were procured and tea was poured.

"Just a touch of honey, just the way you like it." Khlyen offered, and she accepted.

There had been a moment upon receiving his message— _apologies, but…_ — where she had thought he might do something rash. He had strongly disliked her going to court as an eligible woman on her nineteenth birthday, but the Empress had been charmed and the point had been moot. Now at least she felt reassured. He had met her husband and all was going well. She reached out and took Kohli's hand, naturally shaping her fingers to the curve of his palm, and allowed herself to imagine the royal tour that awaited them. Of course she'd been drilled on procedure, tradition and etiquette by her other instructors, but her wedding gift from Khlyen had been oddly sentimental: a zither from Yardeen, a relic of a fallen kingdom.

Khlyen clapped his hands and the magical images burst.

"I know you two have an early start tomorrow on your journey and are eager to turn in for the night, so I won't keep you any longer. I ask only that you share one final gift with me, your highness."

Kohli regally inclined his head.

"Good. I shall fetch the bottle myself. It was a gift from Yalena's father, to be kept until her wedding day." His eyes gleamed and the joy that Yalena felt within her was sure to overflow, she had no idea how she could be so happy. Khlyen rose with a subdued smile and left them.

Kohli leaned in to whisper in her ear, brushing back her hair in a move that was unintentionally seductive. "He's Khlyen, your instructor?"

She nodded, heat rising inside her as she watched his lips, he spoke very softly even as he had moved away.

"He's just a diplomat! The most boring one who ever sat at my father's table." He glanced at Yalena's tea cup. "Do you mind if I?"

She shook her head as he drained her cup and made a surprised little noise.

"Tastes good with honey, doesn't it?" she asked.

He smiled in response and put her cup back.

"I'm so glad I have you," he said and kissed her.

Heat was already kindling instead her, when his lips touched hers, she burst into flames.

"Ahem. So, I only intended to send you along with a nightcap, but you must take the rest with you. As fine as this is, I cannot drink it all myself. Well, I shouldn't."

He filled a glass and handed it to Kohli. "Your highness."

He filled one for Yalena and winked at her. "Your highness."

He poured for himself last and they all held their glasses up to toast, and he said: "May the sun's winds carry you onward always toward fortune, glory and a good life. And may we meet again." They all drank. "I'll have Gona bring the bottle to you before you leave."

"Thank you for your most gracious hospitality, sir." Kohli stood and helped Yalena to standing. "I'm grateful for tonight. May we meet again." They all bowed and Yalena nodded once to Khlyen.

They barely made it three steps from the fire pit before she felt something amiss. Yalena clutched her stomach, and for a moment Kohli was all concern, gripping her tightly even as she slipped to the floor, until he, too, felt twisted by agony and felt to his knees beside her. His groans were unmanly, but he had never experienced pain like she had. This would make all but the most hardened warrior lose themselves. She turned, even as her vision went blurry and her motor function became jerky and brittle, to see Khlyen with the same smile still on his face.

"You!" she sputtered.

"I'm sorry, Yala." Khlyen stood still. "But I couldn't forgive you for this."

Yalena ignored him, reaching for Kohli who had gone rigid with pain, but his glassy eyes were on her.

"What. Did. Do." He was choking.

Yalena tried to comfort Kohli as a terrible cough began to wrack through his body. She clung to him even as she began to cry. But she could not control herself when he spat up blood on her. All the pain she was enduring and was about to go through was nothing compared to watching her love die as she was powerless to stop it. The small comfort in knowing she would soon be dead too was all that was left to her, and it was pathetic. She went rigid, feeling paralysis set in, and laid beside Kohli, holding his hand as blood burbled out of his mouth, and his eyes went cold.

Khlyen had walked leisurely toward her and now watched the tormented bridal pair. "I truly am sorry. But how can I let you leave with him when our work is not yet finished?"

Her confusion of thoughts faded out into a gray fuzziness as she lost all sensation and gratefully sunk toward oblivion.

* * *

In the present…

Dutch couldn't move, she simply stared at him slack-jawed. Kohli rolled his chair closer but stopped when he was only a couple feet away.

"I'd get up, but…" he trailed off.

"You're alive." Dutch stood and bridged the gap. She had the urge to reach out to him, touch his face or stroke his hair, but felt like it wasn't allowed. "Your highness." She dipped a little curtsy.

He smirked a little. "I have no title now," he said. "I'm barely alive." He glanced at Khlyen who had stood and silently pushed in his chair.

"My cue to leave," Khlyen whispered. "Have a nice evening."

Dutch watched him leave with an odd sinking feeling.

"I thought you were dead," she said. The despair caught up with her and her composure was lost. She dropped her head into her hands and sat back down even as Kohli rolled his chair to right beside hers and put on the brakes.

He took her hands and made her look at him.

"But I'm not."

She still needed to cry though. And as awkward as it must have been for him, he leaned over the arm of his chair and held her a little like he used to. He rubbed her back and she wept into the cloth of his shoulder, letting the familiar smell of him calm her. It had been so long. When she pulled back she quickly tried to swat the wet patch on his shirt and made a face. He stopped her.

"Yalena." He looked heartbroken. "I have so many questions."

She nodded. "I know."

"Did you really try to kill me?"

"Is that what they told you?" She immediately, instinctively, thought of Kohli's maternal grandfather: never sat on the throne, but still bent royal ears as far as he could.

"Yes," he said. "But it never made sense to me. I also thought, maybe it was a failed double suicide, or a half-success, and they told me you'd run away and stolen one of the ships so that I wouldn't mourn you as if you had died." He reached out to touch her face and she nuzzled into his palm, somehow able to smile. "I never thought I'd see you again."

"Khlyen let me believe you were dead," Dutch said. "I didn't see him for years, but then I accidentally sent a message—"

"So you weren't running away from my family?"

"Gods, no! What did they tell you?"

"That you faked killing yourself, tried killing me, stole a ship and ran away." He ducked his chin and lowered his dark eyes. "Khlyen was a scapegoat. I haven't seen him since until he contacted me a few months ago." He looked away, out the window to the darkening sea. "What I tried to convince myself of was that you had attempted a double suicide and only you had died. Everything else was convenience my family could manufacture: the missing ship, the AWOL diplomat." He gazed her right in the eye. "I just couldn't figure out the details of why. I thought I'd known you better than everyone, that you had no secrets."

"No." She ducker her shoulders and her lip wobbled as she began to cry again. "Only one. I never told you the rest of what Khlyen taught me."

She told him about the long hours, the endless rote memorization of poisons and knives, arteries to slice, pierce and sever. Cuts to bleed and burn. The ritualized methods of murder. She'd become an assassin in the Empress' harem, and he had been the only one whom she had trusted to take her away. Love had shown her the way. But all that had been torn down and made meaningless. For years she'd been carrying the weight of her dead husband on her shoulders.

"I'm so glad you're alive," she said, scooting to the edge of her seat to nuzzle her head back into his neck and envelope him with her arms.

"You don't know what its been like."

She pulled back and saw that his face had become stony.

"Why don't you finish the story." His eyes flashed and from all she had learned since she'd left, it was like an alarm had gone off in her mind: DANGER!

"Khlyen didn't want me to marry." Her mouth went dry with the memory of when she had told him. "We stopped talking for some time, I didn't go to lessons and he didn't chase me down. I thought—" she shrugged. "When he contacted me that he wouldn't be able to come to the wedding, but he wished me luck and then asked us to visit him in a guest cottage before we left…" She shook her head, her eyes distant in remembrance of that naïve girl she'd been. "I thought that was it: reconciliation. My only guardian was finally accepting what I had chosen. He couldn't force me—"

"But he hadn't changed his mind, had he? He poisoned us, maybe hoping just to scare you into submission, while getting rid of the problem— _me_ — and then could continue molding you into the perfect weapon." He snapped his hands to the wheels and jerked his chair past her, behind her back where she sat, so she stood.

"I thought you were _dead_ , Kohli! I ran away from _him_ , not from you!"

The room was heavy with the night and Dutch almost wished someone else were here to turn on the light and distract her from this. She remained several feet away from Kohli and wiped tears from her face as she angrily sought a light switch or a candle. A bell chord hung near the door so she pulled on it. Hard. Gabriel materialized a second later.

"My lady?"

"The lights?"

Gabriel went from one candelabra to the next, lighting them with patience and calm that spoke of his agility with the blaster hidden in his coat.

Dutch watched the soft glow lighten the room, the starlit sea was only dimly visible now.

She walked around to face Kohli. "I know you're mad."

He glared at her. "You can't let him use you anymore."

"I won't. I'm—" she didn't say anything more, feeling it become a lie. She didn't want to start lying to him. "What happened to you?"

"The poison paralyzed me. It should have killed me, but while you were resistant enough to survive wholly, I only managed to come out with my life. My legs will never move again." He scoffed. "That is to say, they can grow special somethings and inject me with them and I can walk for a few hours, but the pain that comes with it—" He pushed away from her again and rolled to the window.

She pulled a chair from the table and sat beside him, unsure if she could touch him again, so she just stared at his beautiful infuriated face.

"Once I recovered they told me I'd also lost any ability to sire an heir, and since you were gone, or dead, and the child with you, I was cast out of succession. My new title is just for show, and I'm unwelcome at court. Perfect except for my imperfection."

She gripped his hand tightly. "I'm so sorry."

"Why? It's not like you hid the child somewhere." He pursed his lips and his eyes were red from ancient tears.

She shook her head quickly.

"So you miscarried." He sighed a little, looking away out to the darkness.

"Yes," she said, her voice hoarse.

"As I suspected."

She slowly and carefully bent her head to his shoulder, and was relieved when he rested his on top even as he continued to stare out to the sea.

* * *

Back on Westerly, the mid afternoon light filtered in around the oppressive shadow that Qresh cast over everything, and Alvis stood at the edge of a big crater, eyes skimming over the broken beams that had once held up the street and now kept open the mines below. He still wore John's spare clothes, partly for the anonymity but also just because he wanted to. It was an illusion of being close, of having something more than the fight. His entire family was below, the friends he'd known his whole life were deeply ingrained in the shadow world. Jaqobis was outside this, a good man who couldn't chose sides. Although, when he'd been confronted with both sides, he'd chosen correctly.

John had hailed as soon as they'd entered orbit, and had put his ship down at the edge of town, wanting to get the latest news.

Alvis didn't have that kind of time.

He left the crater and found the camouflaged radio station Juno had set up in a run-down smoke house. They were using an old frequency and only using it short range, bouncing it across the moon, distorting it, but hopefully avoiding the Company.

"What's New City reporting?" He asked.

Juno looked up a moment, face tired and blank, but quickly grim determination set back in.

"Numbers holding steady," Juno replied. "But random checks are happening more often. They're sending all their ships here."

"They suspect what's happening?"

"Not even close. They're more worried about resistance to the new work order."

"We still should have some more people in New City."

Juno nodded. "We're expecting a report from K'ya to come back from Westhole very soon now."

"Let me know as soon as it comes," Alvis said. Instead of breathing down their necks, he left again, walking to the old mine entrance that had begun to collapse. The only deterrent was a sign that said 'KEEP OUT' and some barbed wire. He kept walking.

"Hey," Johnny said. "Ashtur said I could find you uptown. I've been looking for you a while now."

"Yeah." Alvis forced himself to still, but he had to fidget: putting his hands on his hips and then turning back out to the city ruins. "What was it you wanted?"

"To see you." Johnny stepped forward, expecting a slight return perhaps, but Alvis was too unsettled, too wound up to reciprocate any warmth of feeling just then. "You're still wearing my clothes," Johnny said.

"It's as good a disguise as any." The words strung him after he'd said them. He swiped a hand over his short hair, the skin cold and crackling as the daylight was chased away. "Sorry, I'm just preoccupied. If there's nothing else…" He began to turn away again, but Johnny took a couple steps and caught his elbow.

"Hey, I'm with you."

When Alvis looked at him, all he saw were blue, earnest eyes.

"What do you need me to do?"

 _Lie to me, tell me no one else will die._ But he didn't have time for sentimentality.

"Did you find out anything useful to us while out on Qresh? Any company rumors going around that you caught wind of?" If he sounded bitter, he hoped Johnny wouldn't read into it, accept it as the hatred he couldn't keep bottling up after a lifetime under the Company's fist.

"No, nothing." Johnny shifted his weight, uncomfortable. He licked his lips and didn't know what to do, folding his arms across his chest in a form of self-comfort. "Ashtur said you had some logistical thing?"

"The people down below." He made a noise of disgusted aggravation. "They won't move. They won't get out, we need to move them, and they think they're safer down there than anywhere else, but you've seen the city. It's one good storm away from collapsing in on itself."

Johnny didn't say anything, searching for something in Alvis' face.

"If we do anything to provoke more action on ground—" he cut himself off and stepped closer, as close as they had been in days. "The city is gonna fall sooner or later."

"You're planning something," Johnny whispered slowly, eyes trying to find it in Alvis' face.

"We don't have much time. We need to get to the next step before the mines are taken back from us." Alvis felt the intensity behind his words, he was trying to say something without _saying_ something.

"You're not gonna lose the city."

"If we get our chance, we're not gonna blow it."

John visibly shivered. "You need to move the people."

"I am not throwing away our shot."

The wind blew in from the badlands, cold as the moon rotated further and further away from the sun, Alvis reached out to John, but he shrugged Alvis off.

"You can't seriously think to leave them." Johnny shifted his weight, trying to remember what Alvis had been like before they'd been so close.

"A dozen people who refuse to join us…" Alvis glanced away, but it wasn't indifference that lay beneath.

"Have you even tried talking to them?" Johnny's eyes unfocused, looking out. "Maybe you just need to say the right thing to convince them they're better off."

"They don't believe me anymore, they don't know me from anybody else whose been filling them with lies from topside." He sighed. "I've tried talking to them, I've explained to them what this means to me, to them, to all of us."

"Company loyal?" Johnny asked.

Alvis shook his head. "They're rats, like I was."

Johnny was struck with a pang and couldn't stop himself from reaching out to just briefly touch Alvis' arm.

"Maybe you just didn't say the right thing." John's look of determination was almost joyful to Alvis. "They've lived in darkness their whole lives, don't you remember what that was like?"

A smile twitched at the corners of Alvis' lips. "I'm sure you can give them a speech and inspire them," he said, and to prevent any more discussion he kissed John soundly on the mouth.

* * *

With Kohli there was kind of silence that accepted the history they'd shared without challenging or ruining it. They'd had a good year together, fallen in love, and their violent separation had not changed that.

"Are we still married?" Dutch asked.

"My family had it annulled," Kohli said.

'We' being the royal we.

* * *

When Dutch exited the Kenndry home into a pastel pre-dawn she found Khlyen waiting for her. Pathetic, really.

She would survive this, too.

He sat up on the stone bench as she came down the steps and turned toward her, but she ignored him and hailed Lucy.

"Johnny, come in."

Nothing.

He watched her as she passed and got up to follow her.

"That was nice what you did there, but don't think I'm ever forgiving you."

"I'm not asking for your forgiveness." He'd caught up and was walking in stride with her. "I need your trust."

Along the paved path there were symmetrical topiary cut into drop-like shapes, a few benches lay between the house and the main road, but the day was still quiet. Dutch suspected she could find evidence of a house-servant if she looked, certainly there were eyes in the windows that she would miss. Too many witnesses, so sticking Khlyen like a pin cushion to get her frustration out was unreasonable.

"I think that is a _very_ tall order, don't you?" She gave him a side-eye.

"Yala, you're already involved whether you wanted to be involved or not," he growled. Gone was his usual beseeching tone. He'd run out of patience as well. "If you can really force yourself to walk away from this you'd be leaving friends in the midst of it. And I can't say they'd fare well without you."

"Are you threatening them?"

"There is a way for you to help me and protect them as well." His gaze was so intense, she felt as though he were being honest with her for the first time in her life. "Yala, I'm working for the greater good here."

She'd stopped just to search his eyes for a moment. But he took her elbow in hand and she jerked away. It was all hidden truths, no better than lies.

"I'm sorry, I know. I shouldn't touch you."

She snorted. "Yeah, that's all. You don't even sound sincere any more. It's like you've realized you crossed the line ages ago, and you finally know that it's no good to even try."

Khlyen's nostrils flared and she continued walking.

"I have no reason to trust you," she said.

She took the stairs down the to the hangar quickly, but still heard Khlyen behind her.

"Stop following me. I'm not helping you."

"Didn't you hear me? You're already involved. Yala." He stopped in the middle of the steps. "Don't make me bring this to you."

"Do I look like a child?" She turned back to gaze up at him however, like he'd wanted.

He was impressive figure, hair gleaming in the first light, face passionately lit, a wind coming in from the sea and tossing the long back of his frock-coat. He was wearing a dark color like umber, and it suited him handsomely. She remembered what it had been like to be his precious bird, his star and bleeding knife. She considered that if things had not become so rotten, or if she had not had a heart, she might have grown to love him. She had believed all the honeyed whispers he'd told her once, but they'd never find their way back to that.

Sometimes, in the black of space, she worried that she still relied on him.

"The Quad is going to fall apart." He came down the steps, each foot-fall a beat of emphasis. "The company is losing grip, the revolution is going to come, and I wouldn't be surprised if they managed to take down Westerly at the very least."

"What, Alvis?"

"Those monks." He said the word 'monks' like it was ash in his mouth. "The Rack was holding it together, commanding peace for a price, but we can't stop them from raining hell down on themselves. What's coming will still come. You need to break peace, this revolution cannot drag out."

"You want me to do what?" She laughed, disbelieving.

"You know what you need to do, Yalena. Aid your friends, do what needs to be done."

"It's against the code." She intoned this like he were an idiot.

He stood on equal ground with her again. "The Rack does more than you know."

"Red 17," she said it carefully, watching the distance between them, waiting for him to snap at her.

"Yala, I want to tell you everything. You were made for these times."

"You made me." She stepped back. "Whatever you made me for, I cannot claim that I ever wanted this."

"Do you think Kohli would have ever wanted just a pretty dancing girl from Yardeen?" He moved closer, and she was stuck. "He wanted you because of what I made you," he whispered.

"Anything I do will be without you."

She continued to the hangar, longing to leave him far behind.

* * *

Once inside, Dutch headed quickly to the waiting area, having long outpaced Khlyen, but found that the blue-haired woman she'd seen beside him in the R.A.C. station already sitting in the alcove. The woman got up as soon as she saw them, brushing invisible creases from her black dress, rising from a small wrought table set with tea. Two cups.

"Dutch, this is Najik, my assistant," Khlyen said, coming along a few seconds after Dutch. He made it sound so natural, like they hadn't just fought again.

Najik made a face, just a slight tug at her mouth really, and Dutch saw that Khlyen observed her the way he had Dutch when she'd been under his tutelage. Dutch didn't ask about the true meaning of that exchange or what their relationship really was. She didn't care.

"It's a pleasure." Najik shook hands with Dutch, her white hands cold.

"All yours, I'm afraid."

She had nothing to do but wait, unfortunately. She wandered out to the wide space of the bay where ships lay, trying her comm-link again.

"Johnny! D'avin! Lucy! Won't anybody come in?"

" _Still a couple minutes out, Dutch_." John's charming voice was welcome noise in her ear. " _Please let them know you're expecting us. Killjoys are having trouble getting permission to land. You at Kenndry's_?"

"Yeah," she said. "How'd you know?"

"Had a hunch." The connection beeped and he was gone.

She went back to tell the man sitting in the control room she was being picked up. Embarrassing, really.

Najik and Khlyen were lounging at the table.

"You got a ride?" Najik asked impetuously.

"Now, now." Khlyen poured himself a cup of tea. "Would you like some?"

She didn't answer.

"I'd like some," Najik said.

He answered her with a look, then spoke to Dutch as he held out a cup to her. "No honey, you seem to have out-grown that."

Dutch accepted it mostly because it made Najik's color rise to that of strawberry milk, she crossed her arms, eyes burning with hatred.

"So how about I begin by telling you what the R.A.C. is." Khlyen said, sipping his tea. "Oh, Najik, have you taken care of, um, our friend." He indicated the guard sitting in the control booth.

"Can't hear a word. Sub-par, no one worth their salt stays at home."

Khlyen nodded and turned his attention back to Dutch: "What is our code?"

"No sides, no bribes, no country, so on and so forth," Dutch said. "The warrant is all."

"So what do you think a level 6 warrant is?" He asked.

"A myth. Well," She glanced at Najik who had begun smirking. "I suppose since you do exist that you take on bigger tasks, or maybe you have no choice but to kill, like ordering a hit on someone."

"It's true that agents in the field would take kill-only orders if they were at level 6, but officers really orchestrate at level 6. Or is oversee a better word?" Khlyen asked this last part to Najik.

"Orchestrate is more accurate, I think."

"We move the pieces around the board," Khlyen said.

Dutch felt her heart beat more rapidly. She had the image of herself as a knight riding an ancient steed, on those old chess boards.

"You see it, Yala?" He leaned toward her, a little breathless.

Her comm-link beeped. " _Coming in now,_ " Johnny said.

"I have to go." Dutch wanted to put her cup down, though it was still full. Najik smirked at that, too, so Dutch thought better of it and drained it all in one gulp. "I've grown to like cold tea," Dutch said. "Don't you agree?"

Dutch enjoyed thinking that Najik hated her, and she didn't even look at Klyen as she set the porcelain down and strode out to the air field.

* * *

" _Is that Khlyen? Who's the blue chick?_ " John asked, Lucy was slowly descending. " _What'd he want?_ "

"Just more of Khlyen's bullshit," Dutch said. The bay door opened and she didn't look back, she knew they'd be gone.

Dutch didn't realize she'd been poisoned until she was back on the bridge beside Johnny. She saw the tremor in her finger before anything else, and the music was like a whisper between the rotations of the engines. She looked out into the darkening sky and heard the singing next. She managed to grind out the words " _Get Pawter_ " before lurching off the deck and down the stairs into the hallway. She clung to the wall even as Johnny followed her down. She wouldn't make it to her room, so she aimed for the couch, but even that was a stretch, so she settled for contorting into unhealthy pose on the grated floor of the lounge.

"That fucking bitch," she panted, as Johnny freaked out beside her.

Najik's smirking face was the last thing she saw before she lost all sense of time and space.


	13. Spirits

AN: Thanks for your kind words. It means so much to know people are reading this. :)

* * *

"What is it?" D'avin asked.

Johnny had gotten him out of his room, where he'd been sitting with his head up his ass. They'd taken the cushions off the couch and laid Dutch on them, unsure if she'd roll off a higher surface. She gazed out unseeing, smiling and twisting her hand like it was stroking soft fur, or feeling the play of the wind whipping past.

"I don't know," Johnny said. "It's not Jakk. Nothing I ever saw before."

"You're sure its not poison?"

"All drugs are poison, D'av." Johnny went to the screen and was about to type something, but he stopped himself. "She told me to find Pawter, but its not like she could do anything now."

He turned to D'avin who mirrored his anguish.

"I don't know what to do," Johnny said.

"Reverse the connection." D'avin seemed like his old self for a moment. "Like you did with the neuro-link. You told me you found Khlyen was in the RAC. Find out where—" He gulped the last words.

 _That was weird_ , he thought, but Johnny finished the sentence.

"Find out where they took you." _And changed you_.

"He'll have the cure, right?" D'avin's voice was almost panicked. It was eerie to Johnny how he lacked so much emotion now.

"I don't know. But he was the last one with her."

They looked down at Dutch where she lay, unaware. Happy, for the moment.

"Let's do it," D'avin said. "How exactly did you—"

Johnny hauled out the cortex of the device Carlene had used on Dutch and unceremoniously dumped in Lucy's cargo bay while D'avin punched away at the display.

"Shit," Johnny whispered, and dropped his face in his hand.

"What?" D'avin had heard him across the room, startling Johnny.

He jerked around to see D'avin still at the console, but staring at him with dark eyes. Johnny felt a chill crawl up his spine.

"Just realized I had Carlene, the neuro-link expert to help me with this last time."

D'avin smiled in a reassuring way that was unlike him. "You can do it," he said.

Johnny nodded.

Maybe it was the fear of losing Dutch, the lack of leadership, or just the stress of the last few months overpowering him, but he couldn't wipe away the uncanny sense that D'avin was not himself. He also felt like D'avin knew he wasn't himself, and maybe that's why he couldn't say anything. He moved slowly, carrying the cocoon device and it's myriad of cables and sensors to the table behind D'avin.

"I should go check on Dutch," Johnny said, turning to find D'avin standing behind him with his freaky looking dark— not black, though— eyes.

"We can do this," D'avin said. When he laid his hand on Johnny's shoulder to reassure him, it felt calculated.

The hair on his arms stood on end, and his skin hurt with the prickling of goose flesh.

"Yeah," Johnny said. "I hope so."

 _So freaking weird!_ He helped D'avin into the device. _Keep it together, John_.

D'avin looked at him like he knew exactly what Johnny was thinking, and Johnny thought he might be just as terrified, just hiding it really, really well.

"Strap me in, Johnny. Let's get this show started."

* * *

For a long moment, nothing happened. D'avin lay there perfectly still, and John glanced between him and the bio-monitors while he waited.

"Well, hello." When D'avin broke the silence, he sounded completely unlike himself. "This is quite a surprise."

"What? What is it?" Johnny gazed wide eyed at his brother. "D'avin, what do you see?"

D'avin opened his black eyes and looked directly at John. _Black. Black. Black._

"D'avin isn't here right now. I don't believe we've had the pleasure."

"Khlyen." Johnny had been right to be scared, after all. "What are you doing with my brother?"

"More interesting is to ask, what were you doing with the rebel monk?"

The voice didn't sound like D'avin, more like the voice Johnny had mimicked on the upper levels of the RAC. To hear it come from his brother, and be other than his brother—

"This is a level of uncomfortable I was unprepared for."

"What crusade has the scarback got you going on? Have you abandoned all your loyalties for a man who sold out his own family?"

"He's dead." Johnny said simply.

"Who?" The voiced asked.

"Alvis Akari."

"Ah, yes. Akari. We know he lives." Khlyens disembodied voice was harsh. "We saw him."

Johnny suppressed the shudder and glared.

"You can't tell the Company, they'll kill him."

"Why would they kill a dead man?" The odd laugh resounded through the hollow machinery. "Don't worry, we know where he is. We'll keep an eye on him."

John blanched.

"Get out!" He shouted. "Stop hijaking my brother you sick fuck!"

The laugh faded away.

* * *

When Khlyen took over, D'avin felt like himself for the first time since he'd met the bastard. He also felt like the world had gone pitch black. All voices, Khlyen's and his brother's, were muffled, like he was underwater.

His first instinct was to lash out, but he couldn't move. He was still laying on the table. Struggling felt like the universe was holding him down, pining him to the table, and brought on a hopelessness like he hadn't felt since he'd begun to have the flashbacks from his days as a soldier. He wanted to cry to relieve it, but he couldn't even do that.

For a moment he listened to Khlyen, taunting his brother— by saying he had found religion? _That's a weird angle to try and get at him with_ , D'avin thought.

Time seemed slow. Between the words he heard, there were whispers he only felt. His heart began to pick up its pace when he recognized Khlyen's voice. He pressed hard against the outside and tried to find where the whispers were coming from. Oddly, when he closed his eyes, he saw a green glow.

 _Fancy Lee lying on a table, black eyes, green dripping—_ he ripped himself away from the chaotic vision, and the whispers lost focus. He closed his eyes again, ignoring the dream memory and seeking out the voice. The whispers were echoes in the cobweb, he needed the spider.

He found Khlyen very close by, not on the RAC station, but on Arkyn of all places.

But he had already known that. _Why can't I say it out loud?_

Khlyen's mind was close, so very close, it was sharing more than a body, they were sharing the same mind, the same thoughts.

At a hundred images per minute, D'avin had access to Khlyen's innermost secrets like they were his own. There was so much he wanted to know. He cycled through his questions so quickly, the answers were a blur. He clamped down on the rapid pace of his heart and tried again.

 _What is Khlyen doing on Arkyn?_ He asked, and he saw the facility again. Dr. Reed, Najik, Fancy Lee and a dozen others. Barren, desolate, Red 17.

He had so many questions, but if he asked them all at once he'd never know. If he took too long looking for answers, Khlyen would be done with John before D'avin had gotten anything.

He focused on the soldier he'd become, steadied his heart.

 _What is Red 17?_ He asked, and he saw.

* * *

Dutch found her fugue ended quicker than she remembered. The hunger for more was only an annoyance and her mouth was dry. She swept off the cobwebs and sat up. Her arms were heavy, but when she lifted them, she seemed to rise easily.

Water from the sink, down her dusty throat. She walked like her feet were not her own.

"Lucy, where is everyone?" She croaked.

" _D'avin and John are in the cargo bay._ "

"Thanks."

She froze in the doorway when she saw D'avin laying in the cortex cocoon Carlene had made for Dutch all those weeks ago.

Carlene who was now dead.

"Johnny, what have you done?" Everything inside Dutch was aching, when her eyes watered it was a welcome relief to her dry eyes.

"Dutch, you're up." He stood and seemed unsure what to do with himself. "He poisoned you, we had to get him—"

"And yet." D'avin turned to her, his eyes empty holes. "Didn't think I'd see you so soon."

"Najik gave me that poison—"

"Yes, that was something she will have to pay for." D'avin speaking as Khlyen was an odd thing. It was both men at once, and creepy, like she was speaking to a puppet master through his dancing doll. "I never imagined she would go to such lengths."

Dutch held out her hand to stop the double vision of D'avin and Khlyen. She shut her eyes and Khlyen was already there.

"You told her everything about me, didn't you?"

"Does that surprise you? I am so proud of you." His voice was insidious. The fever that was burning off made this seem more real. The blurry outline of Khlyen moved closer, even as the darkness of her closed eyes denied what she was seeing.

"You made me into a weapon."

"Sharper than the one you were destined to become."

"I would have been normal!" Dutch burned with rage.

"You felt beholden to a culture that didn't value you!" Khlyen shouted back, towering over her.

"You have no idea what I felt!" Dutch's chest was heaving, she was coming undone. "I was in love."

"You could have been so much more!" He stood over her as she wilted. "Little bird, you didn't see it then, do you see it now? You still _can_ be so much more!"

"More than a _whore_?" The despair was so easily accessible while her heart was still raw, and the drug snaking through her veins. "Is that all you thought I was?"

"That's all they would have made you."

In her head he was there, as he had always been, and she was so small in his arms. He was the only one who knew and could comfort her.

"I could have had a life without death." Her mouth was twisted with sobs that didn't come. "I could have been clean."

"You were born to death." Khlyen said this without pity, and he let her slip from him to the floor. "You know what your father did."

"He sent you." She bit the words out.

"The message was his dying breath." Khlyen was a giant and she groveled at his feet and she hated him. "I'd been sent to finish what he'd started. His last words were of you."

"Did you even know my father?" She sought to hold onto something even as the true darkness folded around her.

"He was a great man. Unfortunately he turned his back on his people in their hour of need, left them no message, and they thought they were following his will while he—" Khlyen gripped her in tight hands and wrenched her painfully to her feet. "He went into hiding. Your father was a coward and I felt no remorse when I twisted the knife. It was his honor, he died well, but he deserved no mercy. So I gave him none."

"What?" She had no voice left.

"Your father dithered over the Empress' ultimatum. Up until her envoy arrived, to welcome or destroy his army, he seemed inclined to fight her off, which was the Yardeeni way. Until at the last moment he accepted her terms and crawled away like a slug. He left you nothing. He destroyed the city with his meek selfishness, he destroyed his people. He nearly destroyed your family. Your inheritance was a rotten husk." Khlyen tenderly touched her face. "Your mother and I are the only reason you are alive and the woman you are today. There was no other future for you on Yardeen, or even in the Empress' house."

Dutch's heart was beating fast, too fast. She was breathless.

"You know the code. Protect the peace. Be the force your father could never stomach being. Hold strong." Khlyen faded away. "It's the only way you'll survive."

Dutch collapsed, and as her eyes fluttered open, blue light strung her blurry vision. She felt the vibrations of the spirits as the Jaqobis brothers bent over her.

"Dutch," one of them said.

"How can I ever come back from this?" she whispered to the air.

* * *

D'avin knelt beside Dutch as John got on the radio, talking to somebody, and D'avin held Dutch's hand. She'd passed out, and was cold like the wall next to an airlock. He cradled her in his arms and made sure her heart continued to beat, even at its rabbit's pace. He rocked her back and forth and began to mull over what he'd seen while Khlyen had gotten in their heads.

He was back to his new self, but found it easier to sift through the new information this way.

He had to tell her, he had to tell Dutch. But she still slept in his arms.

Even now as he held her, he thought he could feel each synapse fire off and thought that it was like holding a delicate animal, made of fragile bones and broken feathers. He was afraid he could crush her. He'd never worried about that with anyone before. Had he changed so much?

Her lids were purple, her skin pale like it was losing blood, but her pulse was strong, just too fast. She was too weak for this. He didn't want to tell her. She had been alone, how could she pick sides now? Khlyen wanted her to do this, that would be enough for her to rebel against, she would never listen to him.

Whatever had been left between her and Khlyen was tattered. He'd killed her father, perhaps he'd already been with the Rack then.

D'avin knew nothing of Yardeen. He'd never heard of the Rack on his and Johnny's home moon. What had changed? The Empire had been far away then, why did these old wounds matter now?

He knew what Khlyen wanted, he knew why the pain was necessary, but in his arms was a woman too stubborn to give up a fight, and too set in her ways to pick a new one. He had to tell her, but for a few more moments she slept in bliss and he could fight off her demons still. This would soon pass.

 _This too shall pass._

If he had been his own man, he would have convinced John to take them far away to a place in the J where the Rack wasn't spying on everybody and the Empire wasn't killing people. Where companies were smaller and bounty hunters didn't have to play by the rules. But D'avin hadn't been his own man in a long time, and if he was really cynical, he'd never been his own man. He may have no planet, not a single piece of Joy in his pocket, but he'd chosen Dutch and Johnny's side very soon after he'd been taken aboard. He was a sucker and he was stuck. He had to think of them.

He pulled the blanket off the cocoon and wrapped it around Dutch as she shivered, and curled his arms around her as she slept.

* * *

Dutch resurfaced in the cold. The blanket she'd been wearing had slipped and D'avin slept with his mouth open while still holding her with soft hands. He awoke when she began to move however.

"S-sorry." Dutch shivered. "D-d-didn't mean to wake you."

"Oh, sweetheart." He stroked her face. "You have nothing to be sorry for."

 _Okay, big picture._ But he was gazing at her with such cloying pity that she had to look away.

"You know, what I said earlier…" His mouth went dry with the words.

She turned back to him, his face so close to hers, brow crowded with worry.

"That wasn't me," he whispered.

"I know." She felt like there wasn't enough warmth in the universe, but that he could provide enough to get her through this conversation.

"While he was…" His eyes flickered away and he gestured with his chin. "I managed to get a look around in his head."

"You have my f-full at-at-a—" She gulped. "At-ten-ten-tention. I'm just c-cold." She tried a smile, but it felt weak.

He graciously ignored this, calling out instead. "Johnny! She's awake!'

Dutch heard the clatter as Johnny jumped the stairs from the bridge and saw him fly through the door a second later. Dutch smiled warmly at him and he looked a little sheepish. "I was, just, uh…"

"You need to hear this, too," D'avin said.

Johnny sat cross-legged on the floor beside them.

"Khlyen doesn't have control over the subjects of Red 17, those who become level 6, but he's in charge." His eyes went back and forth as he saw something he was struggling to put to words. "It's not mind control. Not like—" he licked his lips— "like when Dr. Jaegar pulled the strings. She gave a command like I was a computer who just needed input. Khlyen was inside me, somehow. It wasn't total control, but it was as vulnerable for him as it was for me. I feel pretty confident that if he had stuck around even a little longer, I could have cracked the way to take his mouth for a joyride. It's not something he'll risk when—"

Uncharacteristically, D'avin seemed a little afraid. Dutch snuggled closer to him. She was still cold, sweating and not grasping well onto reality. But she knew she had to hear this, she just couldn't speak more than a few words at a time. He adjusted his arms, keeping her warm.

"When, what?" Johnny prompted.

"The R.A.C. is not just in the Quad for the warrants. They're here for something else. When they got here decades ago, the Company didn't have firm control. The Rack secured it."

"So, the Company engaged them to get peace?"

"No. The Empire did."

Beside her, D'avin was so still that she barely registered how freaked he was, but she felt the gulp in his neck as she hugged him.

" _What?_ " Johnny grabbed his hair in shock, if she wasn't so fucked up, she'd have laughed.

"How. Much. Time." Each word was a puff of air, the only way she could pronounce them.

"Hours. A day at most." He looked so pained. "The Empire is coming. You know what to do?"

She nodded. Unfortunately, she knew exactly what Khlyen wanted.

* * *

When Dutch awoke, she found she was back in her bed, and Pawter sat beside her in rough linen and an unpainted smile.

"Hey, sport. How ya feelin'?" Pawter was chipper.

"Okay," Dutch said.

Her throat was dry again, worse than before. She tried sitting up, but was too weak. Pawter helped her and put a pillow behind her. She steadied the glass Dutch tried to take, which might have been pathetic if Dutch hadn't been seriously worried that it would slip from her hands.

"Thank you," Dutch said meekly.

Pawter swatted her words away with a 'pshaw'.

"And I owe you an apology. I lashed out at John and you were collateral damage. I respect and admire—"

"I'll stop you right there." Pawter's smile was brief and she didn't meet Dutch's eye. "You never liked me. And I suspect that's because you grew up around girls like me. But now we're in this awkward 'maybe friends' zone." Now she looked her dead in the eye. "If you respect me, act like it. Never make me a pawn again."

"Okay," Dutch croaked.

"You're lucky that your relapse wasn't worse. Spirits can be out of the system quick, better than Jakk in that way. Nastier in a lot of ways. Different." She cocked her head and laughed short. "Really takes a toll on you from the first dose. Helps that you've been through withdrawal before."

"Where's John? D'avin?"

"Talking to Alvis. We're back on Westerly, but we're in the Badlands."

"Why? What's going on?"

"The revolution is starting."


	14. Dying to Live

Dutch sat up with the intention of rushing head first into whatever came next. But she was still weak and Pawter held her down.

"Where do you think you're going? You called me here to keep you safe."

"I called you here to get me clean again. Lucy!" Dutch called out to the A.I. "Get me Khlyen!"

" _Dutch?_ "

"Do it, Lucy!"

While Dutch waited for the comm-link to stop hailing, and for that fucking man to pick up, Pawter pulled out a small blue pill from a vial.

"What's that for?"

"Vertigo."

Dutch drank water with it and slowly tried sitting up again.

" _Hello, you've reached Khlyen's office. Unfortunately—"_

"Najik, you frosty tart, where is your asshole boss?"

" _Oh, hello, Yalena._ " Najik's smug face was audible through the connection. " _Have a nice trip?_ "

Dutch had the urge to travel wherever she was and punch her. Repeatedly.

"Get me Khlyen or the next time I see you, so help me Gods—" Dutch stood, seething.

" _You ready?_ " Khlyen did not pussyfoot around once he got on the line.

"On my way to Alvis now. D'avin told me your plan."

This made Khlyen pause, long enough for Pawter to help Dutch into clean underwear and shirts.

" _Clever boy_." He murmured. " _I knew you wouldn't believe me if I told you. Now that we're agreed, we're on the same side, keep me appraised and I will help you however I can. I'll have Najik keep the line clear._ "

"Do you know what that motherfucker did to me?"

" _You weren't going to trust me, little bird. I didn't tell her to do it, but after she explained her reasoning to me, and I saw what happened… with our little 'chat,' can you blame her?_ "

"You really are a heartless bitch." She sighed. "Mute."

Lucy obliged. The line went silent.

"So. We're working with your psycho assassin trainer now." Pawter was surprisingly calm about it.

Dutch raised an eyebrow.

"I got a little info before the boys left." She huffed. "I suppose you'll want me to take you to them."

"Yes." Dutch started for the door, stopped and looked down. "But I'll need pants."

* * *

Dutch and Pawter wrapped themselves in scarves to brave the dust winds that whipped across the Badlands. Lucy had nestled in like a bird in the sand, and Dutch almost didn't see the shimmer of the mirage screen that lay in front of them. Everything was a wash of orange, but straight ahead of them the color was wrong, slightly, like in the middle-distance a mountain lay beyond what she could see in the storm. They approached it and stepped through, finding a large glass-domed monastery not far beyond the barrier.

Immediately inside they removed their head coverings. The buzz of grains on the glass were a dull noise that faded into the background. They saw no one until they came to the foyer. Alvis stood barefoot on tile floor next to the Jaqobis brothers and a green-robed priestess. Her head was shaved and mottled with burn scars. When she turned to the door, Dutch saw her eyes were white with blindness.

"More friends, I presume, Alvis?" She reached out a weathered hand and Alvis took it. He looked so strange in Johnny's black clothes beside all the green around him. The marigold colors of another robed scarback waited in the corner, mute but keenly watching the newcomers.

"Illenore Seyah Simms," Pawter said, introducing herself with full title. "It's a great honor to meet you, Guardian."

"Mm, the runaway Seyah's daughter. Alvis has told me about you." She turned her head slightly waiting for Dutch. "And your companion?"

"Yalena of Yardeen," Dutch said. "You honor us."

,"So much royalty, you sure you chose right with your friends, Akari?" the Guardian asked, mischievous.

"I don't really have time to exchange them now." Alvis rubbed his hands on his pants and asked Dutch a question with his eyes.

"I'm good, Alvis. What'd we miss?"

Alvis gave a curt nod to John who smirked. "Just about everything, Alvis was just filling us in on the plan."

"Ashtur's taken her daughter and some of the others to New City. A representative has been sent to Sugar Point, and everyone else was told to go to the Badlands. Those who are still in the bunkers are waiting for our signal." Alvis looked at the Guardian who had been staring into space, listening.

"Ah," she said. "I suppose this is where I come in. No'a," the Guardian called and the monk in the corner stepped forward. "Would you please let the quarter master know we will be receiving some guests? And—" she held a wrinkled hand— "could I have the master key please."

No'a, able to look at them in their full disrepute, judged them deeply as he handed the data card to the Guardian. He couldn't say 'no', apparently, but he certainly wanted to let them know he thought better of this. He left without uttering a single word.

"Don't worry about him," the Guardian said, smiling mildly. "He's very protective of me. Shall we?" She took Alvis' arm once again and led their group out of the foyer.

They passed through clay doorways that seemed to have been shaped from the dust, walking in a slight curve. Outside the curve were windows covered in a fine film of orange dirt, to the other side lay fogged up glass panels.

Ahead, John was walking on Alvis' other side. The three of them were chatting about something that amused the Guardian and which John was very earnestly nodding to.

 _Is he just part of the bigger plan?_ Dutch wondered. But she didn't really think Alvis would use somebody in that way.

"Am I the only one who doesn't know who she is?" D'avin whispered to Dutch and Pawter.

"The Guardian is the highest ranking scarback in a planetary system. She protects the trees," Dutch replied.

D'avin seemed doubtful. "Here? In the badlands?"

Dutch shrugged. "Your turn. Who are Ashtur and Fiona?"

"A former mine worker and her daughter," Pawter said. "She left the mines when her father was put into Westhole. Her immigration status went from fifth generation to first with the ruling of his sentence. There's rumor that Fiona is Alvis' daughter."

"Why should that matter?" D'avin asked.

"Ah, that's why they went to New City. He's expecting things to get more violent in Old Town," Dutch said.

"Company presence in New City is stronger, but with the destruction of Wreckside, it's bound to get messy here." D'avin stopped abruptly when they turned toward a sealed door.

The Guardian swiped the card at a doorway and they passed into an airlock where air felt moist, like a shower just after the water had been turned off. There were no windows, and the next door took them to a dark stairwell, a faint light strip running alongside them at waist height, and another at their feet, descending into the deep. Dutch considered staying at the top for a split second, wanting to tell Khlyen she'd be unreachable, but didn't know if she wanted to do so in front of the others. She followed them below. It was only a few feet down, but it was clear they'd gone underground.

"That connects to the tunnels and mines as you suspected, Alvis." The guardian gestured to the hallway that lay beyond the foot of the stairs.

"As I remember," he said, his smile dimly visible. "Thanks to you, Guardian of the Trees." He gave bow.

"Still a scoundrel. Couldn't keep that remark to yourself, could you." She patted him on the arm. "I leave you here, but we'll be ready for the survivors when they arrive."

"You'll be all right getting back?" Johnny asked, clearly uncomfortable with the blind woman going off on her own.

"I memorized this place years ago. Slow and steady is the pace, I'm just quicker when I have a guide."

They stood a moment longer even as they all felt the pressure of time press on them like tons of stone from above.

"Go, then!" The Guardian said, releasing them. "May the Woods protect you, and the roots guide your feet along the way!" She brushed them off with a friendly gesture.

"May the Mother protect us all."

"She'll do right by you, see you don't kill yourself before this is over, though." She turned, lifting the hem of her robe and began to climb the stairs back to the light.

The five of them turned back into darkness.

* * *

In the dark, Pawter found that time was without measure. At some point they began to pick up their pace and ran at a slow rhythm along the badly lit hall.

"So, how are we getting people out of the bunkers?" Pawter asked. "Last I was here, they didn't even want to leave to look for more rations."

"Don't worry. Jaqobis' got a speech," Alvis said.

He got a dirty look from John in response.

"Okay, what happens after that?" Dutch asked.

"Keep the Company from reclaiming the mines," Alvis said, betraying no emotion in his stony face. He was always serious, but sometimes a reassuring smile did a lot more, especially when you knew your future lies in the hands of a career revolutionary.

 _His tendency toward martyrdom is problematic_ , Pawter thought.

"Easier said than done," D'avin said.

"That's why you're here," Alvis said, looking straight at Pawter. "We want you to make a bomb."

She already knew that's what he wanted. This wasn't really her fight, though.

"Hang on," Dutch said, a little breathlessly. "I called her, she came for me."

"Actually, I hailed Lucy. Sobering you up was a side-job. I owe Alvis."

"We were thinking of rigging the gas lines coming out of the mines," John said. "We deliver our ultimatum, force the Company to play their hand, then we destroy the rest of Wreckside. We'd destroy a good portion of their income that way. Take down the ruins they created."

"Our next problem is detonating the bombs. The gas needs serious heat to become explosive." Alvis looked to the others, under-lighting flashing across his features.

"Can't we just shoot them?" D'avin asked.

"Communications are back, right?" Pawter didn't wait for an answer. "Johnny, do you have the makings of radio switches?"

"Yeah, I've got parts."

"Then we make small blasts using the dry powder disinfectant from the hospital, detonate them from above, from far away, and hope the town is fragile enough to come down with just that."

"Holy shit, Pawter. You can do that?" Johnny looked at her with such admiration, that she knew coming back had definitely been worth it. She hadn't picked a side, but she had picked her friends.

Alvis led them down a left fork in the tunnel and soon the smell of the damp was stronger. A few more feet and they saw the shadowed outline of a heavy steel door. Alvis came to a stop and they all slowed, walking the last few steps and catching their breath.

"Here we are, this is how we get into the tunnels."

They waited for him to get out the key again and unlock the door. It took two tries, and wiping off the dust that stuck to the card each time he pulled it out again. He entered a code on the display screen and, with a rumble much like the bunker doors, the whole thing slowly unhooked and they were able to push it open. The other side was moist, filled with the greasy air of an undisturbed tomb. The light of the mine lamps flickered on slowly, old and heavy with dirt. The tunnels weren't damaged this far out, but when they stepped further in, they saw the unwashed marks of flooding when pipelines had been opened and drained. The walls had never been repainted since these tunnels had been built three hundred years ago, the faded numbers telling them where they were were unreadable. The lights grew brighter, more steady, and they left the clean, dry hallway behind, shutting the door and reengaging the lock.

"If we get separated or if something happens, we won't be getting back through without you, Alvis," Dutch said. She'd barely caught her breath, Pawter noticed, her body still weak. But she didn't say anything.

"We've all got our tasks" John checked his watch. "We're still a mile out, let's not waste any time."

They sloshed through the water and continued on.

* * *

They did split up, however. Alvis took Pawter to the pipelines, and Dutch got the team back together to escort the survivors out to the Badlands. He gave her the key card with a heavy look, and with her systems still unsteady from the drug, her heart picked up its pace. She'd been knocked down by Johnny a couple times recently, but never had she been so shaken. The spirits took her out of control, and it was something she had enjoyed. It scared her, all she could do was push forward and distract herself.

"We'll meet back at this intersection at the hour," Alvis whispered, and he was gone.

* * *

The dark trio cleared each passageway carefully, D'avin taking fore when Dutch indicated she wanted him to do so, and John bringing up the rear. They encountered nothing worse than power outages, and a gushing water-main underneath the old bathhouse. They went deeper into town until they came to the old bunker, it's door still standing wide open. D'avin strode in first, sweeping the large room quickly and lowering his weapon. He'd stepped into a mob of the sick and elderly, small children had gone, those unable or unwilling to fight now waited. They'd been pacing, staring intensely into the mid-distance, or sitting in a daze, dozing off on woolen pallets.

"You need to leave," D'avin said, simply.

"Why? We're safe here." An old man grumbled from his seat against a wall and frowned at them.

"Not much longer—" D'avin was interrupted.

"Who are you people?" A man with dark skin and only one foot came up from a cluster near one of the pillars holding the ceiling up. D'avin noted a deep fissure running through the beam and knew instantly this room would cave in if Alvis' plan worked.

"We're with Alvis," Dutch said, stepping forward and raising her hands.

"You look like mercenaries," the one-legged miner said. "We survived the bombing down here, out there the halls are still falling down as the city settles.

"It's been on week!" D'avin knew better than to indulge his impatience, but he particularly hated idiotic stubbornness since he'd been kidnapped and changed. "The city will definitely come down on top of you if you stay here."

No one said a word, not even the old man grumbling at the wall beside them.

"What he means is: the Company is coming back down," Johnny spoke up. "Unless you want things to go back just as they were, or worse, like they are in Sugar Point, you need to come with us."

"How d'we know you're not Company and taking us out to shoot us?" The stubborn man squinted at him, shuffling a little closer on his forearm crutch and cocking his other arm on his hip.

"No, I recognize him." A woman who'd been quietly behind him came forward now. "You gave the blood blessing to the Rat King's sister." She reached out her hand and D'avin was mildly surprised when Johnny took it.

"Yes, that was Rena," Johnny said. "I think I remember you."

It troubled D'avin to realize he could tell his brother was lying effortlessly. He heard the beat of his heart and the quaver in his voice, but had he not be able to listen for these small things and the general calm that had settled upon these survivors, he would have had to wait for the next words before he'd known things would be okay.

"We can trust him," the woman said. "He walks along the roots." She let go of his hand but smiled at him contentedly for a moment, stepping forward and splashing down into the puddle just outside the bunker. "Come along, everyone."

"I guess you didn't need that speech," D'avin said.

For all his new senses, he couldn't tell why Johnny blushed just then.

* * *

Alvis didn't need maps in the tunnels, but as they broke from the halls he'd run down his whole life and into the mines he'd tried so hard to fix from the outside, he needed to pause a moment before getting out the blueprints he'd gotten from Hector. He glanced at Pawter, but she only waited.

"Everything okay?" She asked.

"Just taking a look." He probably should have smiled after that.

It wasn't that he necessarily missed the social cues for when he should smile or be more reassuring, he also knew that withholding what his betters wanted was a power play. Giving a smile easily was a price he could not pay. It also helped that believers felt stoicism suited a tree-worshiper. Then he sometimes forgot what he was supposed to be reacting to in a moment. His head was swimming with the payoff of every other action he'd undertaken in the last seventy-two hours.

"You got clean quick," he said. He knew he probably shouldn't have, but it was on his mind.

"What, no foreplay? Why not take it easy on me, preacher?" She gave him a stare.

He also forgotten that when Pawter was awake, she could give as good as she got.

"Seeing you clean is good," he continued. "I'm happy you were able to get off so quick."

"Didn't feel quick to me," she said, frowning. "It was an agonizing blur of days."

"I prayed to the Woods for you." Alvis began moving again, not looking back at her as he said this.

"Thank you," she whispered, and he barely heard her.

They made it to the dry storage beyond which their temporary intelligence center had lain, and he'd slept for a few nights. He stopped thinking about that very quickly, not having the time or the inclination to ruminate over the small pleasures. He dropped a bucket of dried disinfectant at Pawter's feet.

"How much do you need?" he asked.

"Depends. How many bombs do you want?"

They made it back to the intersection quickly, not speaking as time continued to tick down. Alvis tried hard to forget the hours left between them and touchdown of the Company supply ships. They heard a commotion in the hallway ahead, and he was surprised to see John coming down the hallway toward him, alone. No, behind him was a bedraggled group of people. They left feet between them at a time, coming around the corner one or two at a time, it buoyed him up to know they had listened. They would be safe. Even after his argument with John, he hadn't expected them to leave when everyone else was joining the fight. This was the safest way, and he had wanted this. _Thank the Trees._

The wellspring of warmth that came forth at the sight was unexpected, and he did his best to do more than just smile slightly.

He gave a tiny nod of thanks to John and stepped toward the group of people, fully intending to lead them back and D'avin to the Guardian and her tree. He would ask Pawter and Johnny to go back to the radios and supplies to make the bombs, taking Dutch with them to stand guard.

But that was when the roof came down upon their heads.

* * *

Above them, dust shook a few second before the silent rumble shook the walls and the cracks above them broke open. John rushed forward in a burst to duck into the hallway Alvis and Pawter had just come down, even as they pulled back into recessions. The huge panes of the ceiling that broke down upon them growled like thunder. After they'd fallen, they took a moment to settle, their gurgles echoing in the space. John opened his eyes again, pushing away from the wall he'd been clutching but he could see nothing yet. The wane light caught the lingering powder in the air and obscured the view of the others.

Behind him, Pawter lay still and Alvis was already scooping her up. She groaned and her eyes clenched. She was all right. Alvis looked up and John nodded.

"I'll look," was all he needed to say.

There was silence in the hallways beyond them, the main tunnel that had brought them this far stretched far around the bend that he could see, and above was a gaping darkness, but no sky. It would their luck if more came down on them in a short while. The stone would begin to strain and with even less holding it up, it was only a matter of time…

"John." A cough came from the other side of the tunnel, where a collapsed pillar lay across the entrance to another tunnel.

He made his way across slowly, checking for noises, for movement, to see if there was anyone lying beneath a sheet of stone before he stepped on it. He heard the grunts of the old man as he staggered out of an alcove, but was all right. He continued on, noises beginning to murmur forth between people as they found themselves and their shock set in.

" _Hello? Can you hear me? Are you okay?_ " The voices were all whispers.

"Johnny." The voice spoke to him oh-so-quietly from beneath a slab that had fallen. "Where are you, Johnny?"

"D'avin." John's heart lurched as he said his brother's name. "Are you okay?"

"Just rattled. I was really lucky. Got a scratch, can't be very deep, I barely feel it."

Johnny followed his brother's voice to the other side of the big piece, finding him pinned beside a rock and under the slab, but only coughing. He was awake.

"Hey. Hey." John kneeled beside him. "You're okay?"

"Yeah, I am." D'avin coughed again. "The others?"

Johnny sat up and looked out into the white air, slowly clearing and only recognized the man on crutches holding one other person and hobbling around.

"Hey, you! Is anybody injured?" Johnny shouted.

"My piece-of-crap crutches are broken!" He shouted back. "And this woman here got her skull crushed in."

"Dutch." D'avin whispered, but he didn't need to. John scrambled up even as the bile was rising in his throat and he almost fell trying to get to the other man fast enough. He fell into the rubble and knew even as he was lifting a rock from the woman's face who it was, just from her clothes. Her threadbare clothes were grey with the grime of the tunnels long before she'd been killed by them.

"Sephi." He took her hand again and bowed his head.

Even the one-legged miner knew better than to make a snide-remark just then.

"John, who is it?" Dutch limped up from the way they'd come.

"Just one of the women from when I— when the Rat King gave us the codes."

He hadn't recognized her earlier, and with her face crushed, he wouldn't have had a chance to know if it would ever come back to him now.

"We have to get them out of here." He spoke softly, but angrily. Things had gone to far already. "Are you all right?" He asked her.

"Yeah." She nodded behind him. "You found D'avin?"

"He's back here." He stood, leaving the dead woman on the ground. "He's under a huge chunk of rock. I need help, but I don't know if you're—"

"I'll try."

Pawter sat on a rock not far from them, holding her head, and they saw the others who had come with them, with cuts on them, their clothes covered in dirt, sitting, leaning on things, or staring out into space.

"Alvis, did anything cause this?" Dutch asked.

"Not the Company, if that's what you mean." Alvis said, and they kept going.

The old man who had been so stubborn waited for them where D'avin lay, wringing his hands.

"We have to go," he said, when they were closer.

"We have to get my brother out first." John brushed him off.

"I can smell it, can't you? He's lost too much blood."

John didn't have the patience for this. He shoved past, not caring if the man fell, and heard Alvis speak something vaguely reassuring to the old man.

D'avin's eyes were closed, which worried John for a split-second before he opened them again and asked, dead serious: "Do you want me to help push."

"No! By the trees, don't hurt yourself." He looked back, seeing that Dutch, Alvis and few of the fitter members of their group were standing ready. He spoke to them: "We should stand on either side of his head and pry it up so he can crawl out. Wait, D'avin. Do you think you can?"

"Once it's up maybe you can help pull me out."

John nodded. Everyone gripped the slab and counted— _one-two-three!_ — and they heaved to lift the huge thing off D'avin. John quickly gripped D'avin under the arms and pulled him out. He groaned, and John's breath held for a moment, but then he was out.

With his black clothes, it was hard to see how deep the cut was, but blood began to pool beneath him, dark staining the floor, and mixing with the stagnant puddles of water. It was a _lot_ of blood and John thought he would choke.

"D'avin, where—" he carefully felt his fingers over his torso and felt the sticky wetness where it was thickest, a little further and he felt the ragged edge of something cutting into D'avin. He peeled back the layer of his jacket and in the thicker vest he wore beneath was a mangled peiece of black glass, forged in the bombs and journeyed all the way from some tall building high above them. "Oh, gods. D'avin."

He didn't cry though.

"Get Pawter." His voice was gravel.

Dutch, still limping, supported Pawter as she walked over slowly. Too slowly. John had put his fingers into the wound to staunch the bleeding, and grit his teeth.

"How bad is it, Johnny?" D'avin asked.

"Not good."

"No shit."

Pawter slowly sunk to her knees and began to peel back the other layers of cloth and body armor. Down to the skin now, the gash was oozing deep, dark blood, and the pane that had come from some dirty forgotten window above was slowly draining D'avin. He'd grown pale, his eyes didn't stay open and his breath was shallow. He coughed again.

"It's probably punctured his lung, how damn unlucky can one guy be?" Pawter asked. "Does anyone have clean water?"

Alvis handed her canteen.

John felt strangled, and had to look away. He was surprised by Alvis' hand on his cheek, wiping tears away. He hadn't known he was crying.

* * *

"Let me help Pawter," Alvis said and helped John to his feet, easily stepping into his place. "What do you want to do?"

"Remove the shard." She wiped at her face. "But I'm not a doctor anymore."

"I don't know of anyone else here who can do this." Alvis looked at her then up at the others who were crowding around them. "You need to take a step back, she needs space."

"Alvis, look." She pointed to one side of the wound, where the skin was tighter. She couldn't know for sure if he was seeing what she saw, however. It looked like—

"Is it wise to remove it?" Dutch asked. She hadn't stepped back, and this was mildly annoying to Pawter.

"We don't have a choice. I can't staunch the wound with that in there. And…"

"And what?" Dutch asked.

But Pawter ignored her.

"Alvis, hold him down." He did and without another second to waste, she gripped the glass tightly and began to slowly pull it out. Covered in blood, gulped down by the body that it was betraying, she had a hard time of it but it steadily came out. With a sick blubbering sound the thick red blood gulped forth, and the wound convulsed. She didn't dare pour water now, afraid she'd just pour it into his lung. She couldn't tell if it lay directly there, but the bright red blood spoke to being oxygenated.

"Oh, by the Woods, D'avin." She cupped his face in her hands. "Please be okay."

It felt like she was the only one who could see it, but the tissue of his muscle began to tighten more and more, and the goop that came out of him was less and less. The molecules one by one stitched themselves back together and she knew, this was nanite repair on a level she'd never seen in her days at the best medical school money could buy. This was knowledge beyond the capabilities of the Quad.

"Alvis, are you seeing this?" She turned to him and saw that John was peering down in wonder and surprise, while Dutch's expression was much more complicated.

"I've seen this before," Dutch said. She still stood close on D'avin's other side. She then knelt down and turned to Pawter with a grim face.

"Pray tell," Pawter said with blaring annoyance.

"Not here," Dutch said, her voice low with the secret of it. Dutch put her hand on D'avin's bloody chest. "Bandage him up. We need to get these people out of here." She stood and swept the people waiting around them up. "Alvis and I are taking you to the Badlands now. The doc needs to get our friend stitched up."

With only one last backward glance, Dutch left them. Alvis quickly got up to go with her, and while Pawter wanted him to say something, she didn't know what he could say.


	15. Hear the Call

The revolution is in the wait. The majority of it. Planning and plotting and readying the flock for an uprising against the masters who sent them to the desert to starve. Much time passes between the first injustice and the inevitable end of the system that allowed slaves to be kept in the first place.

Alvis had been waiting for the stars to align for years, spent his whole life preparing for the collapse of the Company's Westerly. He was so close, he couldn't afford to get off track now. He left John with his alien brother and nary a backward glance. He and Dutch went in the opposite direction.

* * *

D'avin was quick to rouse, but it seemed too long compared to how fast he had stitched himself back up again. In less than thirty minutes he was sitting up and they were on their way to the supply closet. By the time they got there, D'avin was able to walk completely on his own and was back to his normal color. They cut his ruined clothes off him and Johnny found him a shirt to put on even though he hadn't washed the blood off himself. D'avin picked up his blaster, ready to take up a post at the door. Pawter and Johnny watched him anxiously as he stood by the door to the tunnel.

"Don't you guys have something to do?" D'avin asked.

Neither of them replied. They'd already asked him if he was all right a couple times while he'd been laying in his blood at their feet, and then a few times as he'd stumbled pale through the rubble. He'd told them to knock it off.

"I need to make small packages to attach. Will you need any help getting set up in there?" Pawter asked Johnny.

John shook his head. "I'll just dismantle the whole lot."

He left her with her kitchen explosives and tried to look at a pile of computers objectively. They only had a few hours before Alvis and Dutch would be back and ready to start setting the bombs. He hauled out the tool kit that was stowed in a corner.

"Okay," he said to himself, and dug in.

They filled buckets with their jerry-rigged explosives and detonators. Johnny was running out of parts at the same time that Pawter said her eyes were burning and needed to stop. More than half the bombs had remote detonators, all on a frequency that was limited to a couple hundred feet in range, and whose bandwidth was still turned off.

Pawter and Johnny prepared to carry the supplies between them back to the intersection while D'avin scouted the hallway for them. In the time they'd allotted themselves, they'd only made a couple dozen: not nearly as many as they wanted.

But they didn't say anything, just shared a grim look between them.

The going was slow. D'avin had time to go ahead and even double back to walk with them a couple times. They had a hard enough time just keeping the buckets from kicking them in the shins. They ended in the corridor where D'avin had nearly died, arriving long before Alvis and Dutch did, and had no other option left but to wait.

* * *

On their way back Alvis and Dutch locked the door that led from the Badlands to the tunnels. Wary of the imminent collapse of any tunnel, they kept their feet light and fast, hurtling down quiet ways that dripped with lost echoes. The way was easy to Alvis, and Dutch who had ceded many things in the last few months of her life, didn't say anything as she followed Alvis. She half-feared the ghosts her words would bring back to them.

"Don't do that," Alvis said when she'd gone to peek around the next corner.

She spun around him, unsure of what he'd just caught her doing. Her hand going to her mouth and her gun dropping barrel down instinctively.

"Don't rehash everything. You'll only go crazy." He smiled, and she fell into step behind him when he began to move again. His rare smile was worth so much, it warmed her.

"How do you get in my head like that, since the first time we met—" She knew better than to get an answer. "You must be in a good mood. Everything is going to plan."

"I never planned this." His voice carried the solemnity of a thousand lost souls.

"What about John?"

"I care about him. Like I care about you." His look said enough, that he understood her suspicion and couldn't quite believe it.

She clamped her mouth shut abruptly and he left her alone. Dutch heard the groaning tons of rock above them and didn't want to move at all, she wanted to vanish, be topside again and fly away, run back to the badlands, but they continued on. At long last she thought she felt more familiar with the pillars around her and walked side-by-side with her friend.

Just a few more minutes, and they met their bomb-laden cohorts. Onward to the next.

* * *

They moved quickly, they didn't stop. Johnny accessed the pipeline that would aid their destruction, and determined weak points they bombs could be attached to. The pipeline had been sealed off here in the tunnels, broken in the bombing and leaking too much, toxic and explosive gas at the ready to be used. So they placed their bombs and locked the heavy door to the catwalks that serviced those lines. One match and it would blow the mines down. The entire operation would be shut down.

"Now where to?"

They pulled open Alvis' map and noted the places they would each head towards, all of them making their way across the tunnels underneath, and ultimately ending up far outside the blast zones. But it was a lot of ground to cover, considering each of them had to carry off more than ten bombs each. The small charges all had to be well laid, near a crack or a weak seam.

"How are we gonna get them all in place in time?"

"Such little faith," Alvis said, a little troubled by all the grumbling.

"What will you do for fun when this is over, I wonder." John meant this sarcastically, but Alvis pretended he didn't hear that.

"I don't do this for fun, it's more of a calling."

They picked up their buckets and headed back to the crossroads, pacing themselves for the long day ahead. The deed was already half done, but rest was nowhere in sight.

The excitement carried them on.

* * *

"There you are." Ashtur rounded the corner, leading a band of rebels and vagabonds who were willing to see the Company brought down. Johnny gave her a weary smile, she remained tight-lipped and grim. He realized she'd left Fiona in New City with other children of the rebellion.

"Ashtur," Alvis; eyes went slightly wide, a little surprised, which was as much as you could ever hope to get out of the monk. "You've all cleared the city? We're good to go?"

The group rumbled assent.

"The city is clear of all civilians and soldiers not loyal to the Company," Ashtur clarified. "We're ready." She grinned.

"Then here's the next thing." Alvis set down his bucket. "We're placing small blasts all across the city to aid in its destruction."

"What, completely?" A small scarback asked.

"We've got the means to blow more than just the pipeline. Hopefully we'll take a few of the ships and operations down with it."

Beside him, Dutch stiffened and Johnny reached for her hand.

 _Would she be able to do this?_ He wondered. _Should she have stayed behind in the monastery?_

As if she understood his doubts she squeezed his hand, her smile wane. She would do it, but he might need to stay with her for the aftermath. Taking a life was still taboo for her.

 _Did this count as self-defense?_

Alvis spread the map out and everyone took two blast zones. They would head out from the center, run as fast and as far as they could. Each bomb would act as a relay, carrying the signal onward to the next until the ruins fell like dominoes.

They would make it back to the monastery and see what was left for them to collect when the dust had settled a second time.

 _It feels like self-preservation to them, and we're the idiots who stumbled onto something that wasn't our business,_ John thought. _I don't want to let them down._

He stepped forward, taking his charges, his hands briefly brushing Alvis', the only contact they'd had in the last day. Being alone together on the ship before they'd come into the monastery felt like another lifetime. He licked his lips, palming the radio detonator which was still in his pocket. He'd have to carefully consider his route.

"May the trees protect us all," Alvis prayed, this time he did look at John at least. John didn't even dare think his worst fears— _will this be the last—_ and then they parted and he was on the move.

They had three hours. Hopefully the ships wouldn't beat them to it.

* * *

"We're planting bombs, gonna blow the whole place down as soon as the Company gives us the shaft." Dutch spoke quietly into her comm device, hearing the rustle as Khlyen put down whatever he was doing to listen.

" _Thank you, Yala,_ " he said. " _Let me tell you what my inside man has—_ "

"Inside where?" She swept each tunnel she crossed, counting the ruined arches, remembering the map she'd seen and matching its order to this chaos as best as she could.

Khlyen didn't answer directly.

" _The Company has its own project on the planets surface, they've been tracking survivors who were in Old Town when the bombs dropped._ "

"Yeah, Johnny saw them." Dutch slowly stepped into a black tunnel that sounded different. She didn't speak any more, and Khlyen took her silence to mean she was done.

" _The going theory is that they are literally tracking them, placing devices subcutaneously most likely. They're so crude, their tech barely surpasses Western— anyway, worry a little about letting them into your ranks. If they track a bunch to your hiding spot, which I assume is the Badlands monastery, they'll know what's up._ "

 _Too late_ , Dutch thought.

She'd been slowly, silently moving in the darkness, listening to the drip of water and a sound not unlike wind rushing above her head. It was likely that this tunnel had collapsed and her way was blocked. Far ahead the faint color of early evening reached diffuse fingers, and her eyes struggled to adjust to the dark and seek the light at the same time. She turned the volume of her comm all the way down.

" _The other possibility is that they were_ actually _checking the vitals of those people, in which case we should be even more worried._ "

Her boot made the faintest splash as she came to the puddle the water had been dripping into, and the tunnel seemed to stretch out beside her as well as ahead, a rock scudding down a pile, or being kicked by another boot, further away. She froze, controlling her breathing and just listened. She blocked out the light and tried to make out any shadows moving in the black.

" _Dutch, are you there?_ " Khlyen sounded a little worried, _bless him_.

She only heard an inhalation before her attacker made a move, and she swung both fists for the approximate height of the chest, landing on a solid, flat, presumably male body. He grunted and stumbled back, and she followed him further in the black, ducking as the whoosh of punch came at her. While down in a crouch, she grabbed a leg and pulled with all her might. The man came down with a heavy thud and she tied his boots together and snapped a cable-tie onto his hands. Still on his back, she dragged him with a little difficulty back into the tunnel, toward the faint light. He wasn't struggling yet, that was all that mattered.

Stopping their way was a pile of bricks and cement which lead up to the surface, the gray-purple sky not giving a lot of light, but enough. After dropping his feet she sat on him, still on his back and waited for him to wake up. She entertained herself by picking through his pockets and tucking his knife (a crude thing for hunting rats in the mine) and listening to the live connection buzz. With a start, her attacker woke and tried to kick her off before he'd even opened his eyes. When they were open, she went cold. His pupils were wide, black and his gaze was unblinking. Exactly like D'avin under Dr. Jaeger's control. Each movement she made was taken in with a great amount of care, he was hyper-aware of her.

"Who are you?" She asked quietly.

"We're just keeping an eye on things." The man smiled, teeth bloody. "What are you doing, skulking around down here?"

She hit him in the face with the butt of her gun, but didn't trust him enough to speak freely while he was under her boot.

"Khlyen,." She licked her lips. "Do you remember where I was born?"

" _What?_ " Khlyen was too quiet now, with the roar of machines droning above, she was running out of time. She turned up the device. " _What kind of— Who were you speaking to?_ "

In slow, halting sentences, she began to speak the language of her homeworld. "Are you alone?"

" _Yes, of course._ " Naturally his Yardeeni dialect was flawless.

"Betrayed you anyone?"

 _Gods, I'm rusty,_ she thought.

" _Has anyone betrayed me?_ " He corrected her automatically, just to clarify. " _No, I don't think that's possible. Why?_ "

"Man who snuck up has black eyes."

She heard his intake of breath, and her heart fluttered. " _Who is he? What does he look like?_ "

"Miner, dirty, survivor."

" _Oh._ " Khlyen swore. " _Oh, gods, you know what they did? They released an experimental gas that they bought—_ " he swore loudly, earnestly, and Dutch even imagined she heard someone yelling back at him.

She didn't care who it was.

" _They_ were _checking vitals because they needed to be sure there was a good uptake. It's possible they have ticking time bombs in the monastery already. You have to kill him, Yala._ "

Dutch balked, stepping off the man and watching him sit up immediately, as though he hadn't even hurt by the knock to the head. He stared at her while he brought his hands up to his mouth and began to bite at the plastic tie, blood leaking out where his teeth nicked the skin.

" _They have their eyes on you as long as he's alive, and every word you say will be recorded._ "

"What the fuck, Khlyen?" Dutch didn't bother with her mispronunciation anymore, switching back to the common tongue. "We don't have the time for—" she growled and hit the man in the face, hard, knocking him back, his eyes rolling for the moment while her subconscious sang: _every hit is another chance for brain damage._ She cut the bonds on his arm and quickly pulled them around his back, binding them with a new tie and securing his legs with ties as well for good measure. She got up and let out a yell of frustration, burying her face in her hands.

If she left him, she was dooming him to die in this tunnel only a little later.

She glared at him and began to climb the pile of rubble, thinking to herself, _I'll be back._

" _You sentimental fool._ " His voice whispered across the comm. " _They'll translate the recordings sooner than later. You won't be free._ "

She had no idea if that was the truth.


	16. Shatter

On the surface, the ships droned on and Dutch struggled to carry the man out into the open. A Company officer came out from behind a husk of a building. Dutch had her gun trained on him before he could even registered that it was her.

"Cowan?" She doesn't lower the barrel an inch, but a flicker of recognition was in his eyes.

"D-don't move. Who you got there?" His eyes glanced down at the prone body she dropped at her feet.

"One of yours." Her eyes rose to the ships passing above them, they were landing in the city and the rumble of machines trawling the earth began to come closer.

"Stand down!" He found the strength to yell more loudly after a moment. "You will return to your ship! Westerly will remain under Company control!"

"Tell your boss that the city won't surrender. They'd rather go under than resubmit to the tyranny Qresh rules out through you!" She backed away. "Take your man with you, he won't survive out here."

Careful to retreat along secure lines, Dutch waited until she was out of range of Cowan's blaster before she turned tail and ran. She heard the scrape as the man was pulled along in rubble, Cowan called for help and only got static on his radio. Then an eerie stillness gripped the city and there was a crisp call over the airwaves: " _Get out of there, Boatswain!"_

Rowan abandoned the man and a pang jolted through Dutch's heart, but she ran, grateful at last for the blue goggles that Johnny had left on her bedside and that she'd put in her pocket. The desert was so close, the heat hellish, but she wanted to be out, wanted to be safe more than anything. She fell to her knees in the shifting sands, dust catching in her eyes, her hair and getting under her clothes. She looked out into the dusk and imagined where The Tree waited for her.

Maybe this is what faith in something divine was.

When Alvis gave the command, there was no hesitation, the hammer crashes down. The switches blow, choking in a fit and the city crumbles. Cowan might have made it, but Dutch's unwilling adversary from the tunnels had not.

* * *

The walk back to Lucy was unlike any Dutch had made before, even once where she'd been shot and was very afraid of bleeding out. But the ship welcomed her back with a chirp, Johnny and D'avin wait for her inside, clearly as worried about her as she was about them. They didn't say anything as Dutch hugged them, then they were lifting up out of the sand and headed back into the remade destruction.

There was no place for Lucy to land on Wreckside proper. They circled the destruction for a long time and Dutch saw where the mines were deepest, slowly filling the holes with the ruins of three-hundred years cheap labor. Johnny pointed, aligned the coordinates and checked them with Lucy. She agreed with his assessment.

" _Stay safe, Dutch._ " A low voice spoke only to her.

She swatted at her ear, unwilling to let Khlyen pretend to care for her. When the deck lowered, there was nowhere to go, the shifting rubble and dust treacherous. The city was like the massive bones of a beached whale on wet sand, a sight she only saw once while in the Empress' house, walking the coast with one of her instructors. The ground groaned with a distant song. Dutch felt the fear and bone-dust ashes in her nose and mouth. She signaled to Johnny and D'avin, they followed along after her.

Black eyes were not easily seen from afar. When a female soldier stumbled toward them, ooze dripping from the stump of one arm, her face smeared black and red, Dutch's first instinct was to lower her weapon, to help.

"Alvar," Johnny called out as if to stop her.

She lifted her blaster and shot unsteadily but clearly at them.

They fell to cover.

* * *

Johnny felt the panic rise within him. The swimming sensation of the world couldn't be shaken. _What was a person if they weren't in the driver's seat? Were they still culpable…_

D'avin shot back first.

Dutch looked up in alarm, but when they saw Alvar fall, a neat mark in the center of her forehead, a grim line of determination set into Dutch's face.

"She was half dead from her injuries," D'avin said and they continued on. Johnny was sure he was drowning.

Through the water blurring his hearing, Johnny heard Dutch speak frantically on her comm to Khlyen, but he didn't really listen.

"Give me something!"

They trolled the descent into the gulley containing the broken remains. He twitched when ash flew past, the sky an obscene blue as the sun rose for a new day.

Dutch shot the next person they encountered with a ready gun and a sneer. She didn't kill him, shooting his hand instead. He gurgled in pain and the black gaze followed them.

"I know there'll be more now!" Dutch hissed to her comm, fairly close beside him. He startled, hearing the wind rushing again, the clatter of rocks somewhere, their feet the loudest thing around aside from the buzz in Dutch's ear and her voice.

That's when Johnny was shot.

* * *

"DUTCH STOP."

She freezes, not because a Jaqobis brother told her to, but because the gunslinger in front of her has driven a cold spike into her heart and they are staring at each other, their guns unmoving.

Then, the child began to lower her weapon, her eyes no longer black, and she wept.

" _I've disrupted the signal. It's temporary, but it should give you and Alvis' troops time to secure them and make sure they don't take retaliatory action. Dutch, they need to be corralled, they need to be eliminated if you can't—_ "

"A little girl just shot John," Dutch said, lost.

She was vaguely aware that D'avin was tending to Johnny. _Just a shot in the shoulder._ _Just._

The girl began to weep, the gun useless, laying in the dirt. Dutch mindlessly came to her side, kneeling before her, the rumbled gray frock the child wore like the gray world. Blood is slipping down her head.

"My leg hurts," she said.

Her leg was broken in fact, and Dutch switched comm tracks.

"Alvis, the city was _not_ clear. There's a girl here—" her voice hitched.

"Dutch, look." D'avin gestures to the back of the weeping girl. Her hair is matted with blood, a huge gash in her head, where— _gods, I'm gonna be sick_.

"She's got an open skull!" Dutch panted the words out before covering her mouth.

" _Leave the fight to us. Get her to Pawter, now._ "

The comm-link beeped, Dutch was crying silently, but she switched the track again. Johnny was on his feet, wincing as his arm shifted to accommodate the motion. He wrapped his arm around his body inside his shirt. D'avin had picked up the girl gingerly and they moved. As they came over a rise in the terrain, they saw two people train their guns on them. But they weren't Company, they wore orange robes. They waved and moved on.

" _I can't hold the interference anymore."_ Khlyen's voice broke into their ears over their hasty retreat. _"But orders have changed._ " He sounded impatient. " _Bring Pawter to Leith._ "

In the distance, Dutch could hear firefight. The death toll was already too high. She allowed herself to follow the Jaqobis brothers back to her ship.

* * *

There was a dull hum in her ears as Pawter healed Johnny with only a glance, and then tenderly took the girl, so close to sleeping, out of D'avin's arms. Dutch followed her into the sanctuary, into the very home of the tree. Pawter was stronger than Dutch ever knew. She laid the girl in the roots and the Guardian was there, and she took water from a cupped leaf and cleaned the girl. She was shivering, despite the humid warmth, and when she stopped, Dutch knew it was over.

The Guardian cried with blind eyes and No'a carried the girl deeper into the tiny jungle.

When Pawter looked at her, Dutch craved action. So she told her Khlyen's last command: "We need to go to Leith."

Pawter was annoyed by this, she opened her mouth to probably say as much, but Dutch touched her lightly by the ear, where the comm link switch was, and Khlyen spoke to both of them.

 _"_ _We hold the reins, ladies. We need to drag this down while the momentum is with us. The True Leithians need you Pawter. They need a symbol._ "

Dutch heard the tremor in Khlyen's voice, the missing self-assurance and dimmed power. She'd never heard him like this.

No, once, when the Empress told him to do something he did not want to do, when they were in court together. Once, a long time ago.

 _Ah,_ she thought _. This was Khlyen unwilling to obey._

* * *

Lucy was allowed to land in the midst of Company ships in True Leithian control. They were being forcibly boarded, officers kneeling beside soldiers, casually held blasters keeping them in check. Pawter, dressed like the heroine of a historic war, as though she were about to climb onto a horse and muster troops, was politely met at the entrance to the Bazaar.

Dutch was left alone, and Khlyen gave her curt directions to some other part of the Leithian city, then the connection went dead.

She went deep into the city proper, through old streets to the Company station where law-men worked. But the True Leithian flag obscured the Qresh coat of arms.

The guard at the door, on high alert, started when he saw her and hurried to open the door for her. In the foyer she was picked up by a big woman who looked like she might put Dutch in a headlock, but gave a slight bow before bringing her on-wards. The building was similar to the other stations she'd be in. No imagination allowed them to vary from city to city, even from one moon to another.

At the door to the chief's office, the woman knocked, opened the door and Dutch stepped inside slowly. The woman at the window turned swiftly and smiled when she saw Dutch.

" Yala, you're all right." Her mother said, and Dutch gasped for air, frantically reaching for the chair beside her and gratefully sinking into it. It was too much, and she began to cry, all her defenses falling down.

"Yalena!" Her mother was by her in a flash, kneeling in front of her daughter as memories overwhelmed the girl who was reliving the last two decades.

"You're alive!" Dutch's voice was raspy as she choked on her own words. "What are you doing here?"

Her mother went still. "What do you mean?"

Dutch realized she said something she shouldn't have, but instead of unsettling her further it seemed to clarify something for her. She drew a deep breath, exhaled, then drew another one.

"Are you working for Khlyen? For the Rack?" Dutch still held her mother's arms, but something had shifted. Her mother looked at her squarely now and rose slowly, her bracelets jingling.

"I think you know," she said, speaking the common tongue.

"I don't!" Dutch said, feeling faint, but remembering herself, remembering Khlyen's training, remembering the bristled tone with with Dutch had conveyed orders. "Khlyen sent me here on someone else's orders, he's not actually in charge like I thought and I can't help but wonder—" Dutch stops, looking up and into her mother's still eyes.

"Wondering, what?" She asks her daughter lightly.

"How long have you been part of the Rack?" Dutch watches her mother back away, an old demeanor returning to enshroud her, one she remembers barely from her childhood, something she's now able to identify quickly and with rude understanding. Her mother is the cold hand that guides the movements that Khlyen makes. "How long have you been watching me without—" she doesn't dare finish the question, unsure if her body will betray her.

Her mother, still and alien as moon dust, waits with mirror-like eyes.

"Mother, what have you done?" Dutch asked at last.

"I learned from your father's mistakes." She turned away. "I wanted you to know. To give you a chance… but you may leave if you wish."

Dutch no longer hesitated. She moved like a dead girl walking, but she was gone.

* * *

Dutch left Pawter on Leith, getting no more than an audio confirmation to take off and launching into the atmosphere, even being solo behind the controls on Lucy was preferable to being on the surface of a rupturing world. _Nothing remains, it is all intangible, why cling to it?_ Alvis was in her mind, philosophies and vagaries distracting her with their attempts to sooth, memory overplaying the fractured reports she was getting from Khlyen and Pawter and Alvis.

The Quad was dismantling and Dutch was alone.

A shot across Lucy's bow rocked Dutch out of her daze and the signals connecting her to the rebellion were lost. The alarms on the control deck blared to life, flashing as Lucy tried to tell her they'd been shot in something like a synthetically panicked voice.

" _Dutch!_ "

With a bit too much force, Dutch shut the alarm bells off and huffed. The AI was always getting agitated prematurely.

"Lucy, engage further de—"

With a fizzling crack the lights went out and a smaller ship flew past.

" _Disengage your shields!_ " The only voice over the comm link sing-songed, thrilled. " _Prepare to be destroyed!_ "

Lucy screamed, in her way, as the weapons on the small fighter locked on them, and Dutch had to manually dodge the blast, but the alarm began again.

" _Turning off all non-essential systems,_ " Lucy said, unnervingly even toned. " _Would you like help aiming, Dutch?_ "

"For fuck's sake!" Dutch swerves out of the way after charging at the smaller, armored vessel.

A laugh twinkles over the comm, then Najik purrs, " _oh yes, give me a challenge, you've made it so easy—_ "

Dutch spun Lucy inelegantly in a maneuver that she'd seen Johnny do, letting off a blast of the aft canon while continuing on in her trajectory around Leith, hoping to get away.

But navigation and speed were no longer fully functional. Dutch cried out in frustration, tapping buttons and bringing up the selection screen for the meager weapons on board. She'd never been solely responsible for the safety of her ship. This wasn't the same as pointing a blaster at someone.

Najik was waiting, taunting her, lingering behind Lucy, the connection of their comms flickering, Lucy unable to maintain the connection.

" _Dutch_."

"Put every drop we've got into this, Lucy."

Dutch aimed, fired and watched as the moon protector fell apart. Najik was thrown from the ship and began to drift, caught between the moon's gravity and the inertia of the blast. She wore nothing but a simple flight suit, she had on no face-guard, she was not hooked up to oxygen. Holding Lucy in position, Dutch put on her own suit, jumping out into the wreckage and bringing Najik into the bay. Back in the warmth and oxygen, Dutch held Najik in her arms, and watched the crumpled bones of Najik's face re-knit, saw the moment when her frozen eyes thawed. Dutch felt no remorse as she chained Najik to the wall, still unconscious. With the scant energy left to them, Dutch maneuvered the ship back into the gravity of the moon and they fell as gracefully as they could, back to Leith.

* * *

Johnny had nowhere to go so he stayed in the sanctuary, even without Alvis there with him. Dutch and Pawter were gone, Ashtur was still out there, D'avin was taking his turn on the patrol in the Badlands, watching for the not-entirely-unexpected turn of events. Things had gone well thus far, but it was still a well-oiled machine they were up against.

His arm was healed, but it still hurt. Or maybe that was the death in the air. He couldn't tell his own pain from that of the others anymore.

Maybe it was how close he was to the Mother tree, but that was a silly thought. What difference could a tree make?

As soon as he caught sight of Alvis in the corridor with the Guardian, his heart jumped into his throat. He got up as slowly as he could, doing his best not to disturb anyone else, for fear of mistaking his instinct. Alvis broke off, heading into the dorm and had the slightest reaction to seeing Johnny with a sling on.

"Are you all right?" He asked.

"Yeah," Johnny said, and kissed him.

For a moment, Johnny didn't think about Alvar with a bullet hole in her head, or about the girl laying among the roots of the tree, or the injured and dying that had been brought in over the last hours. As the sun set over the glass dome, all Johnny thought about was the centuries of relief he could feel ebbing out of the man he was holding, and the land surrounding them. It was a new dawn.

* * *

It struck Pawter as funny that she was appointed delegate to the Qresh by the True Leithians, and was to go before the Company board. It hadn't been very long since the last time she'd been there. She was clean now, yet she couldn't really decide if this situation was worse. She waited outside the Leithian Chief's office while a contingent of Free People of the Moons had come up with a unified list of demands for Westerly and Leith.

They brought Dutch to her.

Dutch wasn't bleeding, but her clothes were singed and torn a little, her eyes a daze. Pawter rose immediately, the usual healer's reaction kicking in, despite her dull animosity towards this other woman. Dutch waved her off and up close Pawter saw the faded marks of wounds already tended to. So they just sat together.

When the room broke open, Pawter recognized only a few faces, those of Leithian commanders she had been very briefly introduced to, a tall man with shiny, dark hair and pale gold skin leading them. He briefly met her eyes. She stood and Dutch followed suit more slowly. Behind them were some Scarbacks, Alvis leading them, back in his old marigold robes, face almost expressionless, eyes lifting slightly at the sight of Dutch. Lastly and stopping just outside the doors was a woman who Pawter had caught a glimpse of on her arrival, but now as she stood surveying the departing group, Pawter was amazed at the familiar shape of the eyes, the uncanny profile which was so like Dutch's.

"Yalena," the woman said, and was obviously Dutch's mother.

But Dutch didn't respond, she turned away, and Pawter only caught the end of a glance from Alvis. He and the others waited for them at the stairs. Dutch came with them, though Pawter didn't know why. She also didn't ask.

The atmosphere had already palpably shifted, and when the wind picked up in the fields and forests there was a murmur that Pawter thought sounded like hundreds of years of happiness finally spilling into the open. Dutch walked beside her in a daze. Ahead of them, Commander Zun and Alvis side-by-side at the front, separately orchestrating their rebellions for years, weathered by their own storms. United for this.

They walked the field of Company ships and Pawter saw the wreckage of Dutch's beloved ship, but said nothing. It was clear to her that Dutch had been rescued and healed by the True Leithians. Then that woman, Dutch's mother, left their group to climb aboard a small pod labeled R.A.C., so the station couldn't be far outside orbit. Her breath fell short and her hand caught Dutch's. All around them, faces that she'd patched up were among the rebels and the newly free. Pawter remembered the involvement of Dutch's trainer, Khlyen, something else she didn't quite fully understand, but she understood this.

The Rack had orchestrated this.

Dutch had been used.

Pawter did not speak.

Pawter took Dutch's hand again once they were on the ground, walking toward something that felt heavy and unavoidable. Pawter could only hope she'd do her best. Peace had been hard won, and the Qresh were not happy about it, but time could not be turned back. There was no room for apology, only demands.

There were very few concessions made on the side of the Leithians and the Westerlyns.


	17. Epilogue

The celebrations on Leith and Westerly were unstoppable. Pawter, Dutch, Alvis and the other Westerlyns touched down in New City to raucous applause. For a tense moment Pawter waited for something to happen, afraid that they expected her to speak about the meeting, but that felt like a shade too much. Mercifully, Alvis spoke instead.

Gazing out at the crowd, unable to listen to Alivs, Pawter felt a little numb. Dutch seemed just as unresponsive in that moment, but they both noticed when Alvis gestured and all eyes turned to them. Surprisingly, she found the words within herself: "We won a great victory today! The Qresh have acknowledged the moons, unequivocally and with their full rights. The oppression they built this system on has fallen!" The cheer that went up was overwhelming and swept them up and into the city.

Shortly, Pawter found herself with a drink she had not paid for, as outside the afternoon light glanced off the clean glass buildings, white stone making the city of concessions seem like a pride of its own. Wreckside was behind them, New City was now the largest settlement on the moon. Talking got easier the more she drank, and they gave her more to hear more.

Hours passed effortlessly, she stumbled into the street with new friends, people who'd have never given her the time of day while she was still Seyah Simms. But as Pawter Simms, she finally felt like a real person.

Stone paved streets mocked the Qreshi style Leith had been built with, and without the beauty of nature, carried an off-kilter dignity. No one Qreshi would willingly set foot here, but it wasn't the humble shanty-ville that Old Town had been. Without the echoing shouts of Company soldiers, the city felt different. She'd grown up with the original.

Her steps faltered, her friends left her and she was free to wander.

With the sun setting out in the Badlands, she found Dutch at a fountain in the square, sober and quiet and alone. Night tempted some beauty from the lights and the shadows hid inperfections. Dutch saw her but didn't speak, Pawter recognized something, but was a little too drunk to place it.

"Wait, did you say you're from Yardeen?" Pawter asked without preamble. "I never knew that."

"It was a long time ago," Dutch replied, looking down at the water. "What do the Qresh teach their children about Yardeen?"

Pawter shrugged, the gesture slow and uncoordinated. "Flowers blooming in the night garden—" She exhaled heavily. "I can't remember."

"Your accent could use some work." Dutch's smile was glib and she looked away again, out to the last glimmers of color echoing through the alleys and streets. "Do you think anyone else is here?"

"The whole city is celebrating," Pawter said, gripping Dutch's arm, a little unsteady on her feet. "Let's go find our boys."

* * *

"Well, well, well."

D'avin and Johnny strolled up to the open door where Pree stood, arms crossed in a comfortable position. He grinned when he saw Johnny, arm in a clean sling, with Alvis just behind. Someone clutching their stomach stumbled out and Johnny jumped back a step, wisely, as the person then threw up in the gutter.

"I see you found a nice corner of the slum to set up shop." D'avin said, wryly.

Pree wasn't quite comfortable in this place yet, but he tried to posses it, but D'avin didn't acknowledge this. "Free drinks for friends," Pree said, and lured them inside.

A 'hurray!' resounded when Alvis was led inside, and Johnny's arm injury was recognized as a wound acquired in the rebellion. D'avin was happy to slip back into shadows and listen, overhearing the happy as well as the sad. Many lives had been lost that day, Alvar and the nameless girl were among many nanite-controlled who'd fought to their dying, who'd slipped back into the earth and who'd been sacrificed in the name of the bottom line. Everyone still living was drinking.

He caught Dutch and Pawter at the door, exchanging a long hug with each of them, and then led them to Alvis and Johnny at the bar. Pree was laughing as Johnny gestured and spoke animatedly, a slight flush from drinking in his face, Alvis' hand on his back, rubbing lazy circles. They all came forward quickly to hug the women who'd just arrived, though. Johnny taking longer than Pree or Alvis, and Dutch sharing a look with Alvis that was not quite as kind as the looks D'avin recalled. Something else he didn't have insight on.

"We did the best we could," was all Alvis said, and she nodded, casting her eyes away and to the bar. Pree poured them all drinks.

These drinks seemed to last much longer.

The little pocket of quiet they'd created with that somber moment was finally interrupted by the call for other drink order and Pree's subsequent departure.

Pawter pulled him close just then and asked him how he was feeling, pulling at his eyelids and squinting at him drunkenly. His own senses were a little dull from drinking, but it took much more to get him drunk than it used to."What do you see?" She asked, and waved a hand in front of his eyes. He pulled away, sure that her ministrations were ineffective.

Alvis was holding Johnny as his brother leaned over the bar to grab the bottle.

Their glasses did have bottoms after all.

They remedied it.

After D'avin finished his own drink, he held out his glass to be refilled, but Johnny was being told something amusing by Alvis just then. D'avin barely overheard and deemed the entire thing not-very-funny, impatient to actually feel a buzz. Still Johnny responded to the joke with a smile bigger than the one he'd had on before, was followed up with a lazy kiss. D'avin paused, recalculating and hating how much he felt like a robot. Johnny must have felt D'avin's eyes on him, because he turned to him and raised his eyebrows.

* * *

"Oh." D'avin's face became serious. "I thought that was, like, 'Johnny's in the revolution, he's dating Alvis'…" He frowned. "It's not funny now that I say it out loud, I didn't think my sense of humor was effected so much by Red 17."

"We kissed. In front of you." Johnny felt the burn of intoxication making every annoyance much less annoying.

"Yeah, I know, I remember." D'avin at least had the grace to look both embarrassed and like he was trying to remember.

Johnny felt odd trying to imagine if D'avin could play back the memory like a video file. Imagining that moment in the sanctuary from D'avin's perspective was much less enjoyable.

"I just thought we were all caught up in the moment." He was silent a moment. "That makes so much more sense. I guess I just never saw you with a guy back home."

"You know that one of the things Gra would roast you in hell for was same-sex attraction." Beside him Alvis withdrew a little, and another memory replayed for Johnny, so he caught Alvis' retreating hand and held it.

"I guess I never thought of it." D'avin corrected himself, "Well, no, I thought it _might_ be, since it seemed logical, but I dismissed it since it didn't match up with what I knew about you."

"Dude, tone it down, you sound like Lucy." Johnny tried to reassure his brother with one of the smiles he'd reacquainted himself with in the last few months, something both incredulous and fond. D'avin must have seen it for what it was because he finally snatched the bottle and poured himself another drink and sighed happily. This new D'avin was still something to get used to, but with the warmth of Hokk in them and Alvis' arm around him, Johnny could leave the thinking for another day. Pawter winked at him and raised her glass, shoving off after D'avin refilled it, and headed back into the fray.

"Hey, where's Pree?" Dutch said, draining the bottle. "I think we cleaned him out."

"He went back into the new rent-a-room area." D'avin said pointing.

Dutch took her glass and the empty bottle with her, and D'avin politely ignored Johnny as Alvis pulled him close again.

* * *

She found Pree coming down the stairs, startling him. But he spoke as effortlessly as if he'd already had the words ready. "Dutch, you're wanted in room three." Pree leaned in close to Dutch to say this, and she wasn't quite sure what to make of that. But it chilled something in her, reminding her of the desperately sad reunion with her mother and she sought every clear fragment in herself to align themselves and make the semblance of a sober person. She knocked just before she recognized a smell in the air and walked in upon deja vu.

Delle was, uncharacteristically, wearing a familiar outfit, the same businesslike attire she'd worn when asking for Dutch's help in securing peace on Qresh.

"Revolution came sooner than we all expected," she said, in lieu of any greeting.

"How will you go on?" Dutch said, a little more harshly than she intended. It hurt Delle, and she wasn't afraid to show it.

"I'm sure the Company will come to an understanding with the new owners of the mines." Delle stepped closer, and Dutch smelled the undertones of her perfume, exotic spice from another planet, fresh flowers that bloomed under an attentive sea breeze. She was already drunk, so she lightly grabbed the fabric of Delle's jacket and pulled her closer, the soft body of her welcoming against the buzz.

Except Delle pushed away. "I didn't come for _that_."

"How may I be of service, Seyah?" Dutch asked, again the words bit, but Delle had schooled her features and had the grace to look sanctimonious.

"There is much in store for us in the Quad. I'm sure this isn't the last shift we'll be seeing in the coming weeks and months and even years."

Dutch thought about the Empress just then, even though she didn't want to. She thought of the ships and the halls and the fine silks. She tried to remember the feel of the fine Qreshi fabric instead, the sea wind and sun on her naked skin. Dutch didn't want to crush Delle with that news, she wasn't _that_ drunk.

"I'd like to have your help, to hire you to be my right-hand." Delle folded her arms behind her back elegantly, her face impassive but somehow gently pleading. It was almost endearing, if Dutch hadn't been plied with faces like Delle's all her years in the Empress' harem.

She thought of being beside Delle, of laying beside her and being betrayed by a tongue, of fighting for Delle and— what?— _killing_ for Delle? Her mouth went dry and she picked up the glass she'd left on a table beside the door. She took her time to think and wrangle the words into their correct order. Delle was generous enough to wait.

"All I ever wanted was freedom," Dutch said slowly and softly, "and I've only just learned that I never really escaped. I don't know that I'm ready to sign a new contract." She lifted her eyes and caught a glimpse of true emotion, surprise and, perhaps, remorse. Delle might have been more hurt than she let on, but she wouldn't have accepted Dutch's pity anyway.

"Let me know if you change your mind. You know where to find me." Delle swept out of the room without hesitation, leaving Dutch in the dark.

* * *

"Are you sure you're not too drunk to fly?" Alvis asked, his hands loose around John's waist.

Johnny was a little loose himself, feeling the disparate parts of his guts and chest clunking around as his heart beat loudly in his ears, distracting from the work of his hands. The moon hopper was a little more primitive than the usual ships the Company used, and wasn't being guarded since Johnny was accompanied by Mr. Rebellion himself, so he fiddled (drunkenly) with the hatch wires until there was a satisfying little _zzzt!_ sound and the door opened. It was a tiny little three-seater and more than enough for a midnight spin around the Quad. The plan had not gotten much more involved than that.

Johnny began a search for lights and navigation and _power_ in the dark, his fingers dancing over all the edges, when Alvis intervened and stalled the search for a few minutes. With a crash, Johnny fell into the main panel and mashed the right buttons to jog the system to life. "Aha!" He said and tucked his shirt back in.

Alvis sighed and settled into another seat, lazily eyeing the panel in front of him, but Johnny had no idea if he actually knew what he was looking at, so he just left Alvis alone.

His fingers knew their way around most ships he'd come across this side of the galaxy, and he forgave himself easily when he turned on the exterior lights and blinded a mouse that had been trying to sneak by. The tiny squeak it gave was inaudible over the whoosh of the engines kicking into gear, and with a wiggle of a lever, the entire light-ship jumped into the air.

Moon hoppers were generally unrefined things, cheaply constructed and useless beyond transport and quick trips. Nothing to haul valuables or go a longer distance in a system. But between the moons of a planet, it was something what riding a shooting-star must have been like.

"You say such beautiful things, sometimes." Alvis grinned, unselfconsciously, and Johnny realized he must have spoken aloud again. He threaded his fingers through Alvis' as they climbed in altitude, his steering hand firming on the joystick, watching the blue line of atmosphere become distinct and begin to fall away, the stars growing brighter and more numerous. Here, just in the grip of the moon, he hesitated and sighed. Alvis took this as an invitation and traced his fingers lightly over three-days past a shave and into the short hairs at his neck, pulling him closer to speak wordlessly into the hokk-stained lips. They'd gone for a tumble in the clean bed of one of Pree's rooms, but Johnny was sure that if Alvis kept this up, they'd have to cut the trip short and land soon. When he turned out to the stars, Alvis's mouth on his neck, he caught the glint of a satellite coming toward them from Arkyn. Alvis noticed the distraction, not knowing what it was, and asked, "What is it?"

Johnny didn't know, but didn't say so, pushing the hopper back into action and gliding further out of reach of the moon. Arkyn was like white quartz dust, reflecting all the starlight that fell upon it, and the small spark that had caught his eye was displaced in it. But not for long. The speck grew and grew until Johnny's eyes had to readjust and his blood chilled. This was like a R.A.C. station, but it was made for interstellar travel. Qresh was a sliver of night in the distance, but seemed to be the destination for this cruiser, and it still kept growing larger and larger.

The communications chirped with a hail from, Johnny presumed, the cruiser. The sun was creeping around Westerly soon, Alvis' hand was still on Johnny's thigh and he could still smell the bone-ash and the jungle mist. A thrill of fear went through him as he answered the hail.

"Westerly moon-hopper responding."

"State your purpose and destination?"

"Just a joyride," Johnny said, shrugging, but even before he looked at Alvis, he knew they were heading back moonside. Alvis nodded. "We're heading back moonside, now. What about you, unknown cruiser?"

"Imperial Cruiser Nigeria. Seeking an audience with the rulers of this system. Please standby while leadership is transferred." The line went dead.

* * *

Alone in the misty light before sunrise, Dutch felt the vibration in her body first. The rumble was unlike anything from the fight, and Dutch looked up, half afraid of what she'd see. But her heart already knew. The glimpse she caught of the great ship through the cloud cover stilled her, it had been almost ten years since she'd last seen a cruiser like that, twenty years since Yardeen had fallen, but she knew right away what it meant. She silently, desperately reminded herself that the Empress was still across the galaxy, not anywhere near here, but something else, just as powerful was true: her reach extended this far, now. The Empire had arrived.

* * *

Thank you for reading!


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